A functional model of the early auditory system

An analytical tractable model of the early auditory system is proposed based on the wavelet representation and lateral inhibitory networks (LINs). From a theoretical point of view, LIN processing can be interpreted as a sampling process that preserves information only at the extrema, or equivalently, the zero crossings of the first derivative of the cochlear filter outputs. For each channel, the zero crossings are shown to be dominated by the strongest component of the model response. The spectral contents that are unable to dominate any channel are attenuated in the model representations. This effect is associated with auditory suppression, and compared with psychoacoustic findings