Cock Tail Party Problem

Cocktail-Party Problem – Brain Moulded to Track/Ignore Sound

Researchers studying the ill-famed `cocktail party problem’ found that the brain waves are moulded to enable the brain in tracking the sound it tends to be interested in, while at the same time ignore, competing sounds. This discovery could be helpful in aiding people with hearing issues or focusing on sounds linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – ADHD, autism and aging, according to reports by researchers in the March 6 journal Neuron.

The cocktail party effect is the ability to concentrate on one’s listening capabilities on a single talker amidst a dissonance of conversations as well as background sound. This specialized ability in listening could be due to the characteristics of the human speech production system, the auditory system or the high level of perceptual as well as language processing.

The cocktail party effect could be analysed as two connected though different problem. The main problem of interest is conventionally that of recognition on how humans tend to segregate speech sounds and the possibility to build a machine to perform the task. What may prompt the signs in unravelling one voice from other conversations and the noise in the background? Should the machine utilise the same signs for the task or could it utilise other acoustical evidence which human may not be efficient in detecting?

Human – Unable to Close Minds to Sounds

The reverse problem is the synthesis of indications which could be utilised in improving listeners’ capabilities of separating one voice from the other in interactive speech method. In user interface, presenting various digitized speech recordings at the same time could be needed.

This would provide browsing abilities while avoiding the block characteristic in speech communication due to the nature of audio. A new study has shown that human do not have the means of closing their minds to sounds and hence the brain tends to hear whatever reaches the ears of the person.

According to Charles Schroeder, senior author and a neuroscientist at Columbia University, has commented in a statement that `they have provided the first clear evidence that there may be brain locations in which there is exclusive representation of an attended speech segment with ignored conversations seemingly filtered out’

Brain Activity – Study of Epilepsy Patient

The researchers recorded the brain activity in the study of epilepsy patient who had gone through surgery as they listened to natural spoken sentences. They showed the patients two videos alongside, of people talking and informed them to pay attention to one of the speakers in order to find out how the brain ignored or focused on different sounds.

The brain’s auditory cortex that processes the incoming sound indications represented the brain activity of the speech being attended to as well as that which was ignored; however, the attended speech had stronger impact. Results showed that in greater level processing areas accountable for things like attention control and language, the attended speech only had an obvious, clear representation.

This representation turned out to be more refined as a sentence progressed, indicating as the cocktail-party conversation continues, the brain tends to focus more and more on those sentences only and ignore the rest. Schroeder informs that the earlier studies of the cocktail party problem utilised basic, unnatural sounds like beeps or brief phrases, while this study made use of natural speech.

Researchers had informed that the ability to study widespread patterns of brain activity in surgical epilepsy patients, offers link between work on a brain activity map in animals and exclusively human capabilities such as language and music.