Welcome to the Theunissen Lab

The long term goal of the research in the laboratory is to understand the neural computations that underlie auditory perception with a focus on how the brain of animals and humans decipher behaviorally relevant sounds and, in particular, vocalizations used in communication.  We believe that the neural representation of sound, the major auditory perceptual dimensions (pitch, timbre, rhythm) and the statistics of natural sounds are intertwined and that understanding this 3-way relationship is critical for explaining audition.  Our research approach is multifaceted and interdisciplinary; we combine animal behavior, human psychophysics, sensory neurophysiology and theoretical and computational neuroscience.