Theunissen Frédéric E, Woolley Sarah M N, Hsu Anne, Fremouw Thane
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, 3210 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, California 94720-1650, USA.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Jun;1016:187-207. doi: 10.1196/annals.1298.020.
Understanding song perception and singing behavior in birds requires the study of auditory processing of complex sounds throughout the avian brain. We can divide the basics of auditory perception into two general processes: (1) encoding, the process whereby sound is transformed into neural activity and (2) decoding, the process whereby patterns of neural activity take on perceptual meaning and therefore guide behavioral responses to sounds. In birdsong research, most studies have focused on the decoding process: What are the responses of the specialized auditory neurons in the song control system? and What do they mean for the bird? Recently, new techniques addressing both encoding and decoding have been developed for use in songbirds. Here, we first describe some powerful methods for analyzing what acoustical aspects of complex sounds like songs are encoded by auditory processing neurons in songbird brain. These methods include the estimation and analysis of spectro-temporal receptive fields (STRFs) for auditory neurons. Then we discuss the decoding methods that have been used to understand how songbird neurons may discriminate among different songs and other sounds based on mean spike-count rates.
理解鸟类的歌声感知和鸣叫行为需要研究复杂声音在整个鸟类大脑中的听觉处理过程。我们可以将听觉感知的基础分为两个一般过程：（1）编码，即将声音转化为神经活动的过程；（2）解码，即神经活动模式赋予感知意义并因此指导对声音的行为反应的过程。在鸟类歌声研究中，大多数研究都集中在解码过程：歌曲控制系统中专门的听觉神经元有什么反应？以及这些反应对鸟类意味着什么？最近，针对编码和解码的新技术已被开发出来用于鸣禽研究。在这里，我们首先描述一些强大的方法，用于分析像歌曲这样的复杂声音的哪些声学特征被鸣禽大脑中的听觉处理神经元编码。这些方法包括对听觉神经元的频谱 - 时间感受野（STRF）进行估计和分析。然后我们讨论用于理解鸣禽神经元如何基于平均脉冲计数率区分不同歌曲和其他声音的解码方法。
