Representation of consonants in the peripheral auditory system : a modeling study of the correspondence between response properties and phonetic features
Richard S. Goldhor · 1985
This thesis describes a model of the peripheral auditory system, and discusses certain properties of its response to speech signals. The work was motivated by a theory regarding the role of the peripheral auditory system in the perception of speech. The theory is that the peripheral auditory system transforms speech signals into neural firing patterns with properties which correspond to the phonetic content of the signal. Whereas the phonetic features of speech are encoded in the acoustic waveform in complex and often undecipherable ways, this theory suggests that the representation of speech in the discharge patterns of the auditory nerve correspond in a more direct and straightforward manner to those underlying phonetic features. Two testable hypotheses are implied by this correspondence theory. The first is that cochlear