Auditory periphery as speech signal processor

The main thrust of this article concerns models of the auditory periphery and their properties as speech processors. Physiological studies are given attention, as they provide the basis for the models. Although studies of activity of single auditory nerve fibers have been underway in several laboratories since the early 1960s, it was not until the late 70s that reports of systematic investigations using speech signal stimuli appeared. The author considers: cochlear structure and dynamics; auditory nerve physiology (tuning characteristics); speech signals and the auditory periphery; comparisons between physiological and model results; wavelets and time-frequency distributions.<>