Comments on: Masking patterns and lateral inhibition (T. Houtgast)

Abstract

One of the masker stimuli investigated by Houtgast, viz. the “rippled noise” (or “repetition noise” (Boerger, this symposium) or “noise with its repetition after a delay x” (Bilsen et al, 1970)), has been the main stimulus in electrophysiological experiments by ten Kate et al. (1973, 1974) on the neural coding of Repetition Pitch-stimuli. In their experiments the average spike rate SR(τ of cochlear nucleus units in cat is registrated with a PDP 8-computer as a function of the delay time τ (τ equals “relative ripple density “or “harmonic number”). In fig. 1 such a registration SR(τ) from a “chopper” neuron is represented. The spike rate has relative maxima at τ= n/CF (CF is the characteristic frequency of the unit; n is a positive integer).