Computational Models of Hearing

人类听觉系统能够完成诸如语音理解、声源识别和声源分离等任务，其性能水平仍然是人造系统无法比拟的。本研究计划的长期目标是开发和利用计算模型来：i)提高我们对耳朵和大脑如何处理声学和电刺激来执行一系列听力任务的理解，ii)更好地阐明哺乳动物听觉系统中使用的神经机制，以及iii)开发改进的人类语言感知预测和工具，用于设计新型助听器和人工耳蜗声音处理策略。该研究项目将在听觉模型方面取得重大进展，这些模型已广泛应用于全球听力研究和语音音频处理研究领域。此外，这些结果将为哺乳动物听觉系统中许多处理方法和生物物理机制提供新的理解，这些处理方法和生物物理机制使其能够在许多任务中达到无与伦比的表现水平。这反过来将激发语音和音频处理信号处理算法的新方向，并导致听力障碍辅助设备的进一步发展。

The human auditory system is capable of accomplishing tasks such as speech understanding, sound source identification and sound source separation at a level of performance that remains unrivalled by man-made systems. The long-term goals of this research program are to develop and utilize computational models to: i) improve our understanding of how the ear and brain process acoustic and electrical stimulation to perform a range of hearing tasks, ii) better elucidate the neural mechanisms that are utilized within the mammalian auditory system, and iii) develop improved predictors of human speech perception and tools for the design of novel hearing aid and cochlear implant sound processing strategies.This research program will achieve significant improvements in auditory models that are being utilized extensively in the worldwide hearing research and speech & audio processing research communities. In addition, the results will provide new understanding of many of the processing approaches and biophysical mechanisms employed within the mammalian auditory system that enable it to achieve its unmatched level of performance on so many tasks. This in turn will inspire new directions in signal processing algorithms for speech & audio processing and lead to further advances in assistive devices for the hearing impaired.