Models of the Superior Olivary Complex

Sounds in the real world originate from specific sources, either alone or in combination, so that a natural description of a sound includes its location and other spatial properties. The extraction of these spatial properties by the mammalian auditory system involves early extraction of interaural difference information in the superior olivary complex (SOC), and the modeling of this processing by the neurons in the SOC is the topic of this chapter. This chapter’s focus on the SOC and on interaural difference information means that the monaural localization cues, notably the direction-dependent spectral filtering of the source waveform, are not addressed here, even though these cues also carry information about source location, especially its elevation. The spectral cues for location are discussed in Chapter 5, describing models of the inferior colliculus (IC) in relation to psychophysical abilities.