On the extraction of the signal-excitation function from a non-Poisson cochlear neural spike train

In two recent papers in this Journal, Johnson and Swami [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, 493-501 (1983)] and Gaumond et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, 1392-1398 (1983)] have given procedures for estimating the signal-excitation function s(t) conveyed by a non-Poisson cochlear neural spike train with a known neural recovery function r(t - t'). For a delayed step form of r(t - t'), we show how s(t) may be directly (noniteratively) determined from the post-stimulus-time (PST) histogram response. We also show that for more general recovery functions, s(t) may be determined from the PST histogram response by using a simple iterative method.