A computational theory for the classification of natural biosonar targets based on a spike code

A computational theory for the classification of natural biosonar targets is developed based on the properties of an example stimulus ensemble. An extensive set of echoes (84 800) from four different foliages was transcribed into a spike code using a parsimonious model (linear filtering, half-wave rectification, thresholding). The spike code is assumed to consist of time differences (interspike intervals) between threshold crossings. Among the elementary interspike intervals flanked by exceedances of adjacent thresholds, a few intervals triggered by disjoint half-cycles of the carrier oscillation stand out in terms of resolvability, visibility across resolution scales and a simple stochastic structure (uncorrelatedness). They are therefore argued to be a stochastic analogue to edges in vision. A three-dimensional feature vector representing these interspike intervals sustained a reliable target classification performance (0.06% classification error) in a sequential probability ratio test, which models sequential processing of echo trains by biological sonar systems. The dimensions of the representation are the first moments of duration and amplitude location of these interspike intervals as well as their number. All three quantities are readily reconciled with known principles of neural signal representation, since they correspond to the centre of gravity of excitation on a neural map and the total amount of excitation.