A model of peripheral auditory transduction using a phase vocoder with modified channel signals

Auditory hair cells convert acoustic signals into electrical potentials. The amplitude, frequency, and phase characteristics of this transduction process is probably important for human speech perception. Unfortunately hair cell transduction is nonlinear, and no completely adequate computational models have been developed. A useful body of physiological data does exists which describes the response of hair cells to simple signals such as tones and impulses. We present a hair cell transduction model, based upon a phase vocoder architecture, which can utilize this physiological data to faithfully reproduce important aspects of hair cell response.