Computational Perception Group Research

The research carried out in the Computational Perception Group lies at the interface between three fields:

1. computer hearing which builds automatic systems for processing and understanding sounds
2. neuroscience which is the scientific study of the nervous system
3. machine learning which provides a theoretical framework for learning and making inferences from data

The goal of the research is to develop systems that solve important problems, drawing inspiration from the brain. For example, determining how many sound sources there are in an acoustic scene and what the individual contributions from each source are. There are medical and engineering applications of this work, such as in intelligent hearing aids and cochlear implants for the deaf. Importantly, the behaviour of these algorithms can also be compared to neural processing in the brain in order to better understand what the brain is doing. We collaborate very closely with both experimental neuroscience groups, who research the neural basis of hearing, hearing aids and cochlear implants, and also industrial partners such as Google.

>> Hearing research at the Computational Perception Group, Department of Engineering