Neural mechanisms of attention and speech perception in complex, spatial acoustic environment

Speaker:

Prachi Patel
Columbia University postdoctoral associate

Title:

"Neural mechanisms of attention and speech perception in complex, spatial acoustic environment"

Abstract:

We can hold conversations with people in environments where typically there are additional simultaneous talkers in background acoustic space or noise like vehicles on the street or music playing at a café on the sidewalk. This seemingly trivial everyday task is difficult for people with hearing deficits and is extremely hard to model in machines. This talk focuses on exploring the neural mechanisms of how the human brain encodes such complex acoustic environments and how cognitive processes like attention shapes processing of the attended speech.

Bio: 

Prachi Patel is a recent PhD graduate from Columbia University. Her research focuses on how the human brain makes sense of speech in complex multi-talker settings. She uses her background in Electrical Engineering and works with invasive and non-invasive neural recordings to uncover this scientific question. Her work has been published in current biology, cell reports and jNeuro.