Periodicity Processing in the Auditory System

说明书(申请人提供)：许多不同的复杂声音，包括语音和音乐，都具有某种形式的时间周期性的声学波形，而音调是与这种时间周期性密切相关的人类基本感知。我们建议解决与音调感知相关的复杂声音的时间处理问题，主要是复杂音调和迭代波纹噪声。与音高感知相关的属性有多种，我们建议解决与四个特定知觉属性相关的问题，即匹配的音高、频谱优势、音调强度和相位效应。主要目标是了解人类音高感知的神经基础。我们建议使用一种基于动物心理物理学和神经生理学的多学科方法，以深入了解音调知觉的时间机制。在动物心理物理实验中，将评估栗鼠处理人类心理物理实验中使用的相同类型复杂声音的感知能力。这些行为实验的目的是确定负责人类受试者感知复杂音调的潜在神经机制是人类神经系统独有的还是特殊的，或者这些机制是否存在于哺乳动物中的常见神经机制。在生理学实验中，人类和栗鼠行为实验中使用的相同复杂声音的时间特征的神经表征将在听觉加工的第一级，即耳蜗核进行研究。生理学实验的目的是了解有关波形和包络周期的信息是如何在耳蜗核的各个主要子系统中被表示和处理的。将栗鼠的神经生理数据和行为数据与人类的心理、物理和知觉数据进行比较，将为理解人类音高感知的基础提供重要的生物学背景。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many different complex sounds, including speech and music, have acoustic waveforms that possess some form of temporal periodicity, and pitch is a fundamental human perception closely related to this temporal periodicity. We propose to address issues concerned with the temporal processing of complex sounds, primarily complex tones and iterated rippled noises, as related to pitch perception. A variety of attributes are associated with the perception of pitch, and we propose to address issues concerned with four specific perceptual attributes, namely, matched pitch, spectral dominance, pitch strength and phase effects. The major goal is to understand the neural basis of pitch perception in humans. We propose to use a multidisciplinary approach based on animal psychophysics and neurophysiology in order to gain insights into the temporal mechanisms underlying pitch perception. In animal psychophysical experiments, the perceptual capabilities of the chinchilla for processing the same types of complex sounds used in human psychophysical experiments will be evaluated. The goal of these behavioral experiments is to determine if the underlying neural mechanisms responsible for the perception of complex pitch in human subjects are unique or special to the human nervous system, or whether these are common neural mechanisms that exist across mammals. In physiological experiments, the neural representations of the temporal features of the same complex sounds used in the human and chinchilla behavioral experiments will be studied at the first level of auditory processing, namely, the cochlear nucleus. The goal of the physiological experiments is to understand how information about waveform and envelope periodicities is represented and processed in each of the various principal subsystems in the cochlear nucleus. The comparisons between neurophysiological data and behavioral data from the chinchilla with human psychophysical and perceptual data will provide an important biological context in which to understand the basis of human pitch perception.