Abstract
In order to investigate the spectro-temporal selectivity of single auditory neurons in the auditory midbrain of the grassfrog under different stimulus conditions a stimulus ensemble consisting of tonal and natural stimuli has been constructed. The selection of characteristics of the tonal stimuli was inspired by the general properties of vocalizations of the male grassfrog. The natural stimuli contained a variety of vocalizations of various anuran species and other sounds, taken from the natural environment of the grassfrog (i.e. its biotope). The main point of interest in the present paper is the spectro-temporal characterization of acoustic stimuli. For narrowband signals a parametric description in terms of instantaneous amplitude and instantaneous frequency appears to be attractive. A more general approach, also covering wideband signals, is a description by means of the dynamic power spectrum. Both types of analysis are described. Mathematically they can be based on the theory of analytic signals. The basic principles of this theory are summarized.
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Aertsen, A.M.H.J., Johannesma, P.I.M. Spectro-temporal receptive fields of auditory neurons in the grassfrog. Biol. Cybernetics 38, 223–234 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337015
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00337015