Spectro-temporal receptive field
The spectro-temporal receptive field or spatio-temporal receptive field of a neuron represents which types of stimuli excite or inhibit that neuron. "Spectro-temporal" refers most commonly to audition, where the neuron's response depends on frequency versus time, while "spatio-temporal" refers to vision, where the neuron's response depends on spatial location versus time. Thus they are not exactly the same concept, but both are referred to as STRF and serve a similar role in the analysis of neural responses.
If linearity is assumed, the neuron can be modeled as having a time-varying firing rate equal to the convolution of the stimulus with the STRF.
Auditory STRFs
The example STRF here is for an auditory neuron from the area CM of a male zebra finch, when played conspecific birdsong. The colour of this plot shows the effect of sound on this neuron: this neuron tends to be excited by sound from about 2.5 kHz to 7 kHz heard by the animal 12 ms ago, but it is inhibited by sound in the same frequency range from about 18 ms ago.Visual STRFs
See- Dario L. Ringach Receptive Fields in Macaque Primary Visual Cortex Spatial Structure and Symmetry of Simple-Cell
- J. H. van Hateren and D. L. Ruderman Independent component analysis of natural image sequences yields spatio-temporal filters similar to simple cells in primary visual cortex
Idealized computational models for auditory receptive fields
A computational theory for early auditory receptive fields can be expressed from normative physical, mathematical and perceptual arguments, permitting axiomatic derivation of auditory receptive fields in two stages:- a first stage of temporal receptive fields corresponding to an idealized cochlea model modeled as window Fourier transform with either Gabor functions in the case of non-causal time or Gammatone functions alternatively generalized Gammatone functions for a truly time-causal model in which the future cannot be accessed,
- a second layer of spectra-temporal receptive fields modeled as Gaussian functions over the log-spectral domain and either Gaussian kernels over time in the case of non-causal time or first-order integrators coupled in cascade in the case of truly time-causal operations.