Auditory and Higher Order Language Processing

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Although the human visual system has been studied extensively in cognitive neuroscience, so far only little is known about the auditory and speech system: How do we segregate the sound of a Ferrari from the background sounds of other running car engines, or the voice of a friend from that of many others in a crowd? How is auditory information integrated with other senses such as vision or touch? In the last few years cognitive neuroscience research has set a number of milestones in our understanding about how our brain manages these tasks. This knowledge is crucial because hearing and communicating with the environment and with others is one of the most essential human cognitive skills. This course aims to develop students’ knowledge about the human auditory and speech system. The course starts with basic neural anatomy and considers how this might constrain but also assist auditory processing. Students learn about the basics of speech segregation and perception. Bottom-up and top-down processes are addressed. Finally, the course discusses how the human mind selects relevant auditory, visual and linguistic information in order to communicate.