Application of Cortical Processing Theory to Acoustical Analysis

Advanced Acoustic Concepts, Inc. (AAC) proposes to extend its Phase I work in Auditory Cortex based sound classification. During Phase I AAC demonstrated the feasibility and accuracy of a computational model of human auditory processing based upon this cortical theory. AAC also demonstrated the concept by collecting a large number speech sounds and bird calls of various species and appling the cortical model to extract the salient features of the recordings for system training purposes. The system was then tested to determine the accuracy with which it could enhance speech recognition and assign test birdcalls to the appropriate species. In this Phase II effort AAC intends to extend the bird classification capability significantly to handle a much larger number of species and to correctly assign test calls in the presence of noise. After completion of the model development AAC will implement the code in “C” for real time operation. The test bed will be the AAC Birdstrike SPVA adaptation being developed under the parallel Birdstrike STTR. We will also investigate the feasibility of utilizing the cortical model for classification of other sounds such as marine mammals and spoken language.