Pitch-fluctuation contrast coding may outperform formant-peak rate coding for vowels

Evidence

Vowel coding studies have historically focussed on representation of spectral peaks, or formants, in AN rates or synchrony to stimulus components near BF. These representations are vulnerable to additive noise and vary with sound level. The sensitivity of midbrain neurons to low-frequency fluctuations inspired a shift of focus to the contrast in pitch-related fluctuations along the BF axis in vowel coding (Carney et al. 2015 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5472

Categorization

• XREF: Directly complements the reader’s interest in how formant coding / envelope coding works in normal hearing and its limits. — connects to: Vowel identification depends on formant peaks being representable in the output spectrum. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1368