Keynote addresses

Coherent ICA: Implications for Auditory Signal Processing Presented by Simon Haykin, McMaster University, Canada Abstract We describe a novel algorithm, called Coherent Independent Components Analysis, and referred to as Coherent ICA for short. The algorithm, rooted in information-theoretic learning, exploits the combined use of the Infomax and Imax principles. Experimental results, based on the auditory coding of natural sounds, are presented that demonstrate the ability of coherent ICA to extract the envelope of amplitude-modulated sounds in a manner similar to the behaviour of neurons in the cochlear nucleus and inferior colliculus.

Progress in the Study of Auditory Scene Analysis Presented by Albert S. Bregman, McGill University, Canada Abstract The early research on auditory scene analysis (ASA) the subject of my talk at the corresponding IEEE workshop in 1995 has been followed by many exciting studies that have opened up new directions of research. I will discuss some of them under the following headings: What is the role of attention in ASA? What have we learned by using evoked potentials to study ASA? To what extent has research on human babies and on non-human animals supported the idea that primitive ASA is "wired into" the brain? What is the physiological basis of ASA? How is "binding" carried out in the brain?