A signal detection theoretic analysis of the Carney model of auditory processing

Abstract

Historically, signa[ detection theory (SDT) applied "outside" the ear has not provided valid estimates of the performance measured in psychophysical experiments. Our previous work, in which SDT wm applied at the output of each stage of the Auditory Image Model (AIM) (1), has indicated that this integrated approach affords theoretical performance predictions that are more closely matched to experimental data than previous approaches (2). In this paper, we describe the results obtained when a similar approach is applied to the output of the Camey model of auditory processing (3). Our results indicate that for a simultaneous masking task, when it is assumed that all parameters of the input signal are known, the performance predictions obtained from SDT integrated with AIM and the Carney model are similar at the neural firing stage, and both over-predict experimental measures. However, when it is assumed that the phase of the sinusoid is unknown, the integrated approach provides performance estimates that are fairly close to the performance levels observed experimentally.