A Probabilistic Model of Auditory Space Representation in the Barn Owl

The barn owl is a nocturnal hunter, capable of capturing prey using auditory information alone [1]. The neural basis for this localization behavior is the existence of auditory neurons with spatial receptive fields [2]. We provide a mathematical description of the operations performed on auditory input signals by the barn owl that facilitate the creation of a representation of auditory space. To develop our model, we first formulate the sound localization problem solved by the barn owl as a statistical estimation problem. The implementation of the solution is constrained by the known neurobiology.