[Colloquium] REMINDER: TTIC Colloquium: Nima Mesgarani, Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia University

[Dawn Ellis]

When:     Monday, October 6th at 11am

Where:    TTIC, 6045 S Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room #526

Who:       Nima Mesgarani, Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia
University

Title:       Reverse engineering the neural mechanisms involved in robust
speech
              processing

Abstract:

The brain empowers humans with remarkable abilities to navigate their
acoustic environment in highly degraded conditions. This seemingly trivial
task for normal hearing listeners is extremely challenging for individuals
with auditory pathway disorders, and has proven very difficult to model and
implement algorithmically in machines. In this talk, I will present results
of an interdisciplinary research effort where reverse-engineering
methodologies are used to determine the computation and organization of
neural responses in human auditory cortex leading to new biologically
informed models incorporating the functional properties of key neural
mechanisms. The neural responses are recorded invasively from electrodes
surgically implanted on the cortical surface of epilepsy patients,
providing a highly detailed view of the neural activity. A better
understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in speech processing can
greatly impact the current models of speech perception and lead to
human-like automatic speech processing technologies.

Speaker Bio:

Nima Mesgarani is an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at
Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. from University of Maryland
where he worked on neuromorphic speech technologies and neurophysiology of
mammalian auditory cortex. He was a postdoctoral scholar in Center for
Language and Speech Processing at Johns Hopkins University, and the
neurosurgery department of University of California San Francisco before
joining Columbia in fall 2013.

Reference:

N. Mesgarani, S. David, J. Fritz, S. Shamma (2014), “Mechanisms of noise
robust representation of speech in primary auditory cortex”, Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences
N. Mesgarani, C. Cheung, K. Johnson, E. Chang (2014), “Phonetic feature
encoding in human superior temporal gyrus”, Science, 1245994
N. Mesgarani, E. Chang, (2012) “Selective cortical representation of
attended speaker in multi-talker speech perception”, Nature 485: 233-236


Host:  Karen Livescu,  klivescu at ttic.edu



-- 
*Dawn Ellis*
Administrative Coordinator,
Bookkeeper
773-834-1757
dellis at ttic.edu

TTIC
6045 S. Kenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL. 60637
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