Srilekha Venkatasubramaniam
Research Mentor: Jonathan Brennan
Mentor Department: Linguistics, LSA
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 6 (3:00 PM – 3:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 98
Abstract
Researchers have debated whether the human brain uses the same cognitive mechanisms to process different domains of sounds, such as speech and music. Are the same brain regions used to encode speech vs music? To test whether the brain’s neural alignment to acoustic signals like music are the same or different to that of speech, we conduct an encoding analysis of EEG recordings from different types of speech and music stimuli. The central idea is to test whether a linear mapping from acoustic signals to electrical brain activity is the same or different across these domains. To do this, we use data from Shah et al 2024 who recorded cortical brain responses during passive listening to speech and music. A temporal response function (TFR) analysis yields time-varying coefficients for both speech and music stimuli Comparing the coefficients between speech and music provides a test of how correlated or similar these elicited neural patterns are. In doing so, the results address whether music and speech stimuli are processed using very similar neural mechanisms.
