Hearing Seminars
CCRMA hosts a weekly Hearing seminar (aka Music 319). All areas related to perception are discussed, but the group emphasizes topics that will help us understand how the auditory system works. Speakers are drawn from the group and visitors to the Stanford area. Most attendees are graduate students, faculty, or local researchers interested in psychology, music, engineering, neurophysiology, and linguistics. Stanford students can (optionally) receive credit to attend, by enrolling in Music 319 "Research Seminar on Computational Models of Sound Perception." Meetings are usually from 10:30AM to 12:20 (or so, depending on questions) on Friday mornings in the CCRMA Seminar Room.
The current schedule is announced via a mailing list. To be added to the mailing list, send email to hearing-seminar-request@ccrma.stanford.edu. If you have any questions, please contact Malcolm Slaney at hearing-seminar-admin@ccrma.stanford.edu.
Recent Hearing Seminars
Gerald R Popelka on Wearable Hearing Devices (Hearables)
Date:Fri, 04/26/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarI suspect the next technological gold rush is going to be in and around the ears. As our devices become more personal they can make better use of human signals, many of which are easy to measure near the ear. Already, I suspect more of us wear devices in our ears than anywhere else on our bodies. What would you like the next generation of computers to do for you? Better sound? Better vocal assistants? Better physiological monitoring?
Gerald Popelka is a professor in Otolaryngology here at Stanford and has been thinking about what might be possible around the ear. Many efforts towards better hearables have started here in Silicon Valley, and this will be a good opportunity to hear what has been done, what people are thinking about, and what is missing.Open to the PublicAnna Huang on Deep Learning for Music Composition: Generation, Recommendation and Control
Date:Fri, 04/19/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarDeep neural networks (DNNs) have solved many real-world problems, and have revolutionized the way that we use speech and images to interact with our computers. Not to mention making self-driving cars possible. Perhaps music is the last problem to solve with DNNs. :-)
FREEOpen to the PublicShihab Shamma on Neuroplasticity and the Musical Experience
Date:Fri, 04/12/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarWhat could be better at CCRMA than music and the brain?!?!??!! Prof. Shihab Shamma will be at CCRMA to talk about how music changes our brains.
Shihab has been studying auditory perception for many decades, and has thought broadly and deeply about many areas of perception. In the past Shihab has helped popularize the spatial-temporal receptive field (STRF) as a measure of cortical activity, and has spearheaded the efforts to do neural decoding, reconstructing audio from neural spikes. Most recently he has been thinking about how music affects our cortex.
Who: Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland and École Normale Supériere)
What: Neuroplasticity and the Musical Experience
When: Friday April 12, 2019 at 10:30AMFREEOpen to the PublicDecoding Spatial Auditory Attention Using a Vestigial Pinna-Orienting System in Humans
Date:Fri, 03/22/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarThe neck bone's connected to the head bone. The head bone's connected to the ear bone… ok, that is going too far.
But Daniel J. Strauss will be at CCRMA on Friday to talk about "Decoding Spatial Auditory Attention Using a Vestigial Pinna-Orienting System in Humans.” Decoding auditory perception from brain signals is certainly one of the more interesting directions for auditory research. At ARO earlier this year in Baltimore, there was some interesting research showing that movements of the eyes showed up as a movement in the ear drum. And now Daniel Strauss is visiting from the University of Saarland, and will be talking about how our pinna might reflect our listening intent. Cool!
Who: Daniel J. Strauss (Saarland University)Open to the PublicCamille Noufi on detecting traumatic brain injury from speech
Date:Fri, 03/15/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarMany injuries of the body are identifiable with external measures, but not so with brain injuries. This is an important problem, as there are many ways to injure our spectacular noggin. The classic test for a concussion is to see if you can follow a ball or finger traveling in a circle with your eyes, which can be automated using eye tracking and a screen. But this still leaves much to be desired.
FREEOpen to the PublicChas Pavlovic on an Open Portable Platform for Heaing Aid Research
Date:Fri, 03/08/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarI think it is safe to say that none of the people reading this announcement have perfect hearing anymore. From the night of our first rock concert, it’s all downhill. But the world of hearing is changing, with over the counter technology aiming to improve access to hearing assistance to *everybody*. Android, Apple iOS, and Bose all have technology available today that modifies the acoustic signal to fit our ears. The world will sound better to all of us.
FREEOpen to the PublicScott Bressler on Differentiating sensory and cognitive auditory processing deficits
Date:Fri, 02/22/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarOne of the most difficult issues in today’s hearing world is understanding the different mechanisms that can lead to hearing loss. Especially with older people, where a host of interrelated problems provide a confusing menu of possible reasons (and thus treatments). In fact, one of the most popular topics at last week’s ARO (Association for Resarch in Otolaryngology) meeting was synaptopathy, usually described as the hidden loss of hearing. Why do people sometimes perform worse than what a pure tone audiogram reports? This is important because hearing aids only “fix” the audiogram.
FREEOpen to the PublicLauren Fink (UCDavis) on modeling pupillary entrainment to music and absorptive music listening experiences
Date:Fri, 02/01/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing Seminar
What can our eyes tell us about how we hear music? Lauren Fink from UC Davis will talk about how the pupils of our eyes respond to music. Her work shows that the pupil diameter reflects the musical rhythm and whether we are engaged with the music. This is cool, not only because it shows our eyes "listen" to music, but also ties into recent work investigating the connection between auditory salience and eye responses. The eyes have it!
AbstractFREEOpen to the PublicNarayan Sankaran on Decoding Music & Speech from M/EEG activity
Date:Fri, 01/25/2019 - 10:30am - 1:55pmLocation:CCRMA Seminar RoomEvent Type:Hearing SeminarHow is that our brains identify the tones and phonemes that make up the music and speech that we listen to? Clearly it’s some sort of neural network, but little is really known about how these decisions are made in our own brains.
I’m happy to introduce Narayan Sankaran, new to the Bay Area, who has been doing a lot of work on measuring how our brains respond to speech and music. Most importantly he is looking at how the brain distinguishes different tones and phonemes. This has been done with single-unit recordings and perhaps ECoG, but it is novel to do this with EEG. And then how do these signals get turned into meaning? Very cool work.
Who: Narayan Sankaran(UCSF)
What: Decoding Music & Speech from M/EEG activityFREEOpen to the PublicPragati Rao on auditory and cognitive statistical learning in musicians
Date:Fri, 01/18/2019 - 10:30am - 12:00pmLocation:Seminar Room at the KnollEvent Type:Hearing SeminarAre the statistics of a Beethoven concerto different than rap music? I suspect nobody will argue this point. But what effect does it have on our perception and understanding of music? Do trained musicians have a “deeper” understanding of the statistics of music? Does top-down knowledge about a type of music affect how we perceive and enjoy it? Is there more to statistical models than crafting clever P.D.Q. Bach pieces? Can we measure and see differences in people’s expectations?
FREEOpen to the Public
