Edward Large: Auditory Temporal Processing: A Dynamical Systems Approach

Edward Large, Ph.D, is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Director, NIMH Training Program in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University. He is currently Visiting Fulbright Scholar at CIRMMT.

ABSTRACT:
The human auditory system is highly nonlinear, and auditory nonlinearities are manifest directly in perception. Auditory sensitivity, tonal masking, harmonic distortion, combination tones, the perception of loudness and the perception of pitch are just a few of the nonlinear effects that have been observed in psychoacoustics. Nevertheless, auditory modeling is still dominated by linear approaches, such as filter banks and autocorrelation. In this talk, I descirbe a theory of active, nonlinear temporal processing that makes predictions about auditory perception. The hypothesis is that temporal processing in the central auditory nervous system is based on nonlinear resonance. In other words, the central auditory system analyzes sounds using networks of nonlinear neural resonators. Recent studies in nonlinear dynamics reveal that networks of weakly coupled nonlinear oscillators share universal properties independent of the physiological substrate. The universal properties of nonlinear resonance can be related to various phenomena in auditory perception. I will describe a computational framework for audition based on nonlinear resonance, describe its mathematical properties and relate these properties to perception.

About Ed Large:
Dr. Large's research addresses the question of how the brain responds to complex, temporally structured sequences of events, such as music and speech. His research program ccombines behavioral experimentation, neurophysiology, neuroimaging and dynamical systems modeling. His current projects include studies of auditory perception, attention and music cognition, funded by National Science Foundation CAREER Award BCS-0094229.

Prior to FAU, Dr. Large was a faculty member at University of Pennsylvania, in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science. He has also conducted research at the U. S. Air Force Research Laboratories and at Toshiba's Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratories in Kawasaki, Japan. He received a B.S. from Southern Methodist University, where he studied mathematics and classical guitar performance, and he subsequently performed for several years as a professional musician. He received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, where he studied computer science and psychology. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the journal Music Perception, and he serves on the scientific advisory board of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function. Dr. Large is the founder of Circular Logic, a software company based in Boca Raton.

http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~large/