A thalamocortical model of auditory streaming

The auditory system segregates incoming acoustic signals into perceptual representations of sound sources within the environment, but how and where this is done is not yet clear. Psychophysical experiments on auditory streaming provide many clues about processing within the auditory system and offer a good basis for the development of models of auditory processing within a simplified paradigm. We propose a physiological basis for the process of primitive streaming, exploring our ideas by means of a computational model of the system. The model provides a novel explanation of the formation of auditory streams, and a basis for the integration of other grouping cues and attention.