Signal processing of acoustic signals in the time domain with an active nonlinear nonlocal cochlear model

A two-space dimensional active nonlinear nonlocal cochlear model is formulated in the time domain to capture nonlinear hearing effects such as compression, multi-tone suppression and difference tones. The micromechanics of the basilar membrane (BM) are incorporated to model active cochlear properties. An active gain parameter is constructed in the form of a nonlinear nonlocal functional of BM displacement. The model is discretized with a boundary integral method and numerically solved using an iterative second-order accurate finite difference scheme. A block matrix structure of the discrete system is exploited to simplify the numerics with no loss of accuracy. Model responses to multiple frequency stimuli are shown in agreement with hearing experiments. A nonlinear spectrum is computed from the model, and compared with FFT spectrum for noisy tonal inputs. The discretized model is efficient and accurate, and can serve as a useful auditory signal processing tool.