Career: Cognitive Auditory Systems for Processing of Complex Acoustic Scenes

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Performance of hearing systems and speech technologies can benefit greatly from a deeper appreciation and knowledge of how the brain processes and perceives sounds. While most current systems invoke operations akin to the peripheral auditory system, they stop shy of incorporating promising capabilities of the central auditory system, most importantly its ability to adapt to the demands of an ever-changing acoustic environment. Recent physiological findings are amending existing dogmas of processing in auditory cortex; replacing conventional views of "static" processing in sensory cortex with a more "active" and malleable mapping that rapidly adapts to behavioral tasks and listening conditions. Hence, a new architecture for sound processing based on cognitive and adaptive processes promises to open a revolutionary frontier for hearing and speech technologies.The PI will conduct a five year CAREER award study aimed at developing effective algorithmic implementations to tackle challenging sound and speech processing problems in real ecological environments. This research aims at providing a rigorous framework for designing experiments that test the role and mechanisms of active and cognitive adaptation in the auditory system. This interdisciplinary effort will integrate techniques from neurophysiology, psychophysics, computational neuroscience and engineering. The planned research will focus on: (i) developing a computational model for adaptive and cognitive auditory processing using dynamic systems techniques such as adaptive and kalman filtering; (ii) furthering understanding of the role of cortical plasticity in auditory perception with a series of experiments with human subjects (using psychoacoustics and Magnetoencephalography -MEG-) aimed atexploring the neural correlates, time course and role of these adaptive processes; (iii) assessing the computational and experimental findings in a range of engineering applications; and (iv) exploring the integration of higher cortical processing capabilities in hearing prostheses.This research effort is complemented by an educational plan aimed at promoting education in the field of adaptive and cognitive audition, through the development of new undergraduate and graduate curricula, introduction of new educational and assessment tools for improving and monitoring student achievements, as well as outreach activities to attract talented individuals to the field of cognitive engineering.This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).