Decoding the neurophysiology of auditory scene analysis with EEG

Abstract

How humans solve the cocktail party problem remains unknown; that is, our ability to attend to a single speaker in a noisy environment, such as a cocktail party. However, progress has been made recently thanks to the realization that cortical activity tracks the amplitude envelope of speech. This has led to the development of regression methods for studying the neurophysiology of continuous speech in humans. One such method, known as stimulus-reconstruction, has been successfully utilized with cortical surface recordings and magnetoencephalography (MEG). However, the former is invasive and gives a relatively restricted view of processing along the auditory hierarchy, whereas the latter is expensive and rare. Thus it would be extremely useful for research in many populations if stimulus-reconstruction was effective using electroencephalography (EEC), a widely available and inexpensive technology.