Scientific Understanding of Consciousness
Consciousness as an Emergent Property of Thalamocortical Activity

Hearing and Speech

 

 

Cocktail party problem: concurrent complex sounds, which are completely mixed upon entering the ear, are re-segregated and selected from within the auditory system. The resulting percept is that we selectively attend to the desired speaker while tuning out the others.

Separating out a speaker of interest from other speakers in a noisy, crowded environment is a perceptual feat that we perform routinely. The ease with which we hear under these conditions belies the intrinsic complexity of this process.