Gd. Chen et Dg. Sinex, Effects of interaural time differences on the responses of chinchilla inferior colliculus neurons to consonant-vowel syllables, HEARING RES, 138(1-2), 1999, pp. 29-44
The responses of 100 inferior colliculus neurons to syllables differing in
voice onset time (VOT) presented binaurally were studied. As in a previous
study of monaural responses (Chen et al., 1996), the responses consisted of
1-3 response 'components', referred to as release responses, VOT responses
or vowel responses. The discharge rate of all response components could va
ry cyclically with the interaural time difference (ITD). The maximal rate o
ften occurred at an ITD around +0.2 ms (contralateral ear leading). Respons
e frequencies (RF) based on the periodicity of the delay curves varied with
the characteristic frequency (CF) and VOT. RF also varied across response
components. Overall, RF was correlated with the 'most effective frequency',
the spectral component with the highest amplitude, relative to the tuning
curve. VOT response latency for a given syllable could change by a few ms w
ith ITD, but those changes were small, relative to the range of latencies o
bserved over the entire range of VOTs. Changes in ITD produced large change
s in the overall shape of the peristimulus time histogram. There was no rel
ation between the histogram shape and perceptual consonant categories. (C)
1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.