Synchrony capture filterbank: auditory-inspired signal processing for tracking individual frequency components in speech.

A processing scheme for speech signals is proposed that emulates synchrony capture in the auditory nerve. The role of stimulus-locked spike timing is important for representation of stimulus periodicity, low frequency spectrum, and spatial location. In synchrony capture, dominant single frequency components in each frequency region impress their time structures on temporal firing patterns of auditory nerve fibers with nearby characteristic frequencies (CFs).

Real time decomposition of speech into modulated components.

Motivated by the active process of the outer hair cell (OHC) in the mammalian inner ear, a real time decomposition of speech into modulated components is presented. A generalized phase lock loop (GPLL) was applied to decompose the speech signal into its envelope and positive instantaneous frequency (PIF) parts, which can be further processed and represented by timing information alone. A log-derivative operator is applied to the bandpass signal.