Spectral shape analysis in the central auditory system

A model of spectral shape analysis in the central auditory system is developed based on neurophysiological mappings in the primary auditory cortex and on results from psychoacoustical experiments in human subjects. The model suggests that the auditory system analyzes an input spectral pattern along three independent dimensions: a logarithmic frequency axis, a local symmetry axis, and a local spectral bandwidth axis. It is shown that this representation is equivalent to performing an affine wavelet transform of the spectral pattern and preserving both the magnitude (a measure of the scale or local bandwidth of the spectrum) and phase (a measure of the local symmetry of the spectrum). Such an analysis is in the spirit of the cepstral analysis commonly used in speech recognition systems, the major difference being that the double Fourier-like transformation that the auditory system employs is carried out in a local fashion. Examples of such a representation for various speech and synthetic signals are discussed, together with its potential significance and applications for speech and audio processing.