It is reasonable to consider that auditory characteristics, such as neurophysiological spectro-temporal receptive fields and spectro-temporal modulation sensitivity, have emerged as adaptive solutions shaped by both evolutionary pressures and developmental processes. A fundamental question is why such characteristics have emerged through adaptation. What kinds of perceptual tasks have animals faced? In what kinds of acoustic environments? Understanding developmental processes is essential, given the influence of tasks and environments on the auditory plasticity during and beyond the sensitive period. Evolutionary perspectives are equally important, particularly for translating findings from animal models. A powerful approach to addressing these questions is computational modeling within the framework of comparative biology. In this paradigm, models trained on naturalistic tasks are treated as analogs of biological species. Artificial neural networks are well-suited for this role due to their adaptability and generalizability, allowing for direct comparison with biological systems. In this talk, I will introduce studies examining the emergence of auditory characteristics, including our works on neurophysiological tuning and psychophysical sensitivity to temporal modulation, as well as our ongoing investigation into spectro-temporal modulation. I will also discuss the practical challenges in bridging peripheral auditory processing with neural network models and simulating individual variability in hearing impairment.
Takuya Koumura (Wed,) studied this question.