Robust Spectrotemporal Reverse Correlation for the Auditory System: Optimizing Stimulus Design

Abstract. The spectrotemporal receptive field (STRF) is a functional descriptor of the linear processing of timevarying acoustic spectra by the auditory system. By cross-correlating sustained neuronal activity with the dynamic spectrum of a spectrotemporally rich stimulus ensemble, one obtains an estimate of the STRF. In this article, the relationship between the spectrotemporal structure of any given stimulus and the quality of the STRF estimate is explored and exploited. Invoking the Fourier theorem, arbitrary dynamic spectra are described as sums of basic sinusoidal components--that is, moving ripples. Accurate estimation is found to be especially reliant on the prominence of components whose spectral and temporal characteristics are of relevance to the auditory locus under study and is sensitive to the phase relationships between components with identical temporal signatures. These and other observations have guided the development and use of stimuli with deterministic dynamic spec...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2000
• Where: JCNS
• Authors: David J. Klein, Didier A. Depireux, Jonathan Z. Simon, Shihab A. Shamma
• Keywords: Accurate Estimation, Dynamic Spectra, JCNS 2000, Spectrotemporal Receptive Field