An excitation-pattern model for the starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Abstract

This paper develops and tests an excitation-pattern model for the starling. Like excitation-pattern models for humans [e.g., Zwicker, Acustica 6, 365–381 (1956); Florentine and Buus, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 70, 1646–1654 (1981)], the model for starlings provides a unified account of a large body of data. The foundation of the model is a critical-band scale, which is derived as an equal-distance scale according to a cochlear-map function. The cochlear-map function is determined as a best-fitting function to physiological data relating characteristic frequency (CF) of auditory-nerve fibers to their place of innervation on the basilar papilla. Excitation patterns are derived from auditory-nerve measurements of levels at CF necessary to produce firing rates equal to those evoked by a test tone. The shape of these excitation patterns is independent of level and frequency when plotted on a cochlear-distance scale. The resulting model indicates that 10-dB bandwidths of auditory-nerve tuning curves and frequency DLs can be approximated as equal distances along the basilar papilla. Predictions of level discrimination are in good agreement with the data, except below 20 dB SL. Overall, the present work indicates that excitation-pattern models account for a wide range of auditory phenomena in both humans and starlings, when the models take into account differences in critical-band scales, absolute thresholds, excitation-pattern slopes, and growth of excitation, which is linear in starlings, but nonlinear in humans.