Re: Rationale for Critical Bands

[Martin Braun <nombraun@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Dick and other,

You need not find the proceedings of the 1994 Irsee conference. Ehret's (and 
Merzenich's) work on CB related observations in the ICC of the cat is 
completely documented in a comprehensive review from 1988:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3289688

Here you find many neuronal tuning curves which show you a level 
independence over large level ranges. Further, as to the authors' opinion on 
your question, you might like to read the following three quotes from this 
review:

"It is suggested that the critical band analysis must arise in
higher auditory brain centers." (p. 140)

"This convergence of input on a single map of frequency representation in
the ICC can be expected to give rise  to coding of critical band
characteristics which lack an explanation by neuronal responses at
lower levels." (p. 140)

"The critical bandwidth, of which in 1970 J.V. Tobias said in the foreword
to Scharf's chapter on critical bands
'..... the other senses lack the mysteriousness of this unseen - perhaps 
nonexistent - but pervasive auditory filter',
would exist in the functional anatomy of the central nucleus of the IC." (p. 
160)

Why it is the anatomy of the ICC, which is unique in the brain concerning 
its CB relatedness, is described in the work of Langner, Schreiner, and 
Braun, which I have already referenced twice in this thread.

Martin


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Braun
Neuroscience of Music
S-671 95 Klässbol
Sweden
email: nombraun@xxxxxxxxx
web site: http://www.neuroscience-of-music.se/index.htm



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard F. Lyon" <DickLyon@xxxxxxx>
To: <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: Rationale for Critical Bands


> A follow-up, in case anyone still cares...