Spatial Stream Segregation in Auditory Cortex of the Behaving Monkey

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The acoustic environment is complex, as it usually contains an a priori unknown number of unknown sound sources. To extract a particular sound source from the environment is therefore a daunting neuro-computational problem, which is in principle mathematically ill-posed. Nevertheless, the auditory system is very successful in dealing with complex sound mixtures, enabling us to follow a conversation at a crowded cocktail party, or to enjoy the performance of an orchestra. The process of parsing the acoustic environment has been termed auditory scene analysis (ASA). ASA is thought to rely on the spectro-temporal patterns of the scene, and on internal heuristics (priors) employed by the auditory system. An important cue available to the system is spatial location. The processing of spatial cues is relatively well understood up to the level of auditory cortex. Considerably less is known about the neuronal processes underlying the role of spatial cues for ASA. Moreover, hearing-impaired listeners have substantial problems with ASA, as current hearing aids and cochlear implants are still not able to segregate complex acoustic mixtures. My project aims at uncovering the neuronal substrates for spatial streaming in auditory cortex of behaving Rhesus macaques and will thus (i) further our understanding of how spatial cues enable ASA in human listeners, and (ii) will lead to improved artificial speech-in-noise recognition algorithms, thereby directly improving ASA in the hearing impaired.