Sonification and Visualization of Neural Data
Author(s)
Berger, Jonathan
Wang, Ge
Chang, Mindy
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Abstract
This paper describes a method for integrating audio and visual displays
to explore the activity of neurons in the brain. The motivation
is twofold: to help understand how populations of neurons respond
during cognitive tasks and in turn explore how signals from
the brain might be used to create musical sounds. Experimental
data was drawn from electrophysiological recordings of individual
neurons in awake behaving monkeys, and an interface was designed
to allow the user to step through a visual task as seen by
the monkey along with concurrent sonification and visualization
of activity from a population of recorded neurons. Data from two
experimental paradigms illustrating different functional properties
of neurons in the prefrontal cortex during attention and decisionmaking
tasks are presented. The current system provides an accessible
way to learn about how neural activity underlies cognitive
functions and serves as a preliminary framework to explore both
analytical and aesthetic dimensions of audiovisual representations
of the data.
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Date
2010-06
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Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Proceedings