Technical report available on neural oscillators for ASA

[Guy Brown <G.Brown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A new technical report is available by FTP:

MODELLING THE PERCEPTUAL SEGREGATION OF DOUBLE VOWELS WITH A NETWORK
OF NEURAL OSCILLATORS

Guy J. Brown (1) and DeLiang Wang (2)

(1) Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, 211
Portobello Street, Sheffield S8 0ET, UK
Email: guy@dcs.shef.ac.uk

(2) Laboratory for AI Research, Department of Computer Science and
Information Science and Center for Cognitive Science, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH 43210-1277, USA
Email: dwang@cis.ohio-state.edu

ABSTRACT

The ability of listeners to identify two simultaneously presented
vowels can be improved by introducing a difference in fundamental
frequency (F0) between the vowels. We propose an explanation for this
phenomenon in the form of a computational model of concurrent sound
segregation, which is motivated by neurophysiological evidence of
oscillatory firing activity in the auditory cortex and thalamus. More
specifically, the model represents the perceptual grouping of
auditory frequency channels as synchronised (phase-locked with zero
phase lag) oscillations in a neural network. Computer simulations on
a vowel set used in psychophysical studies confirm that the model
qualitatively matches the performance of human listeners; vowel
identification performance increases with increasing difference in
F0. Additionally, the model is able to replicate other findings
relating to the perception of harmonic complexes in which one
component is mistuned.

OBTAINING THE REPORT BY FTP

The report is available by anonymous FTP from the site
ftp.dcs.shef.ac.uk (enter the word "anonymous" when you are asked for
a login name). Then enter:

cd /share/spandh/pubs/brown

followed by

get bw-report96.ps.Z

The file is 2910288 bytes of compressed postscript. If you have
trouble downloading or viewing the file, or if you would like a paper
copy to be sent to you, please email me (guy@dcs.shef.ac.uk)

---

Dr. Guy J. Brown
Department of Computer Science
University of Sheffield
Regent Court
211 Portobello Street
Sheffield S1 4DP
United Kingdom

Email: guy@dcs.shef.ac.uk
Tel: (+44) 0114 2825568
Fax: (+44) 0114 2789072