- When: Tuesday, March 5th 10:00 to 11:00
- Where: salle Vinay (R+1)
During this INT/CONECT seminar, Prof. Elia Formisano will present his recent work on the neuroscience and computational modelling of natural sounds “Auditory Cognition: Bridging Human and Machine Perspectives”
Abstract : The ability to recognize and interpret sounds is crucial for both humans and, increasingly, machines. From the chirping of birds to the sirens of emergency vehicles, sound perception allows us to understand events and identify objects, even in challenging contexts like darkness or behind barriers where visual information lacks. Drawing on interdisciplinary research from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence (AI), I will discuss current models of how the human brain processes natural sounds, transforming complex acoustic waveforms into meaningful semantic representations. I will then explore potential directions for collaborative developments in AI and neuroscience, framed as a tool for deepening our understanding of the neural computations involved in the extraction of diverse semantic information from naturalistic soundscapes.
Elia Formisano received his MSc degree in Electronic Engineering in 1996 from the University of Naples (Italy) and his PhD from the national (Italian) program in Bioengineering in 2000. Thanks to an outgoing grant, in 1998-1999, he was a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt/Main. In January 2000, he was appointed Assistant Professor at Maastricht University (Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience) where he is now Professor of Neuroimaging Methods: Neural Signal Analysis. In 2008-2013, he has been Head of the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience. He is the scientific director of the Maastricht Brain Imaging Center (MBIC), Principal Investigator of the Auditory Perception and Cognition group and founding member of the Maastricht Center for Systems Biology (MaCSBio). His research is supported by several national (e.g. NWO VIDI, VICI, Gravitation) and international funding sources. His research aims at discovering the neural basis of human auditory perception, cognition and plasticity He pioneered the use of ultra-high magnetic field (7 Tesla) functional MRI and multivariate modeling in neuroscience studies of audition. He is actively involved in methods development, focusing on algorithms for unsupervised and supervised learning. On these topics, he has published in high ranked journals, including Science, Neuron, PNAS, Current Biology. He has about 20 years of teaching experience, which includes the development of courses and curricula at bachelor, master and graduate school level on topics of cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging and biomedical engineering (biomedical signal and image analysis). In 2008-2010, he has been Chair of the Educational Program for the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) meetings.
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