Mini symposium on the development and plasticity of the sensory brain. 

Natural soundscapes and hearing loss

Natural soundscapes are defined here as complex arrangements of sounds produced by biological sources such as birds and insects, and geophysical sources such as wind, rain and a river, shaped by habitat-specific sound propagation effects such as diffraction (scattering of soundwaves as they pass through or around an obstacle) or reverberation(Grinfeder, E.

Comment est née cette initiative ?

Le contexte actuel a motivé notre décision. Ce projet s'est construit spontanément avec l'intention d'exprimer notre solidarité vis-à-vis de nos collègues Ukrainiens. Nous avons donc envoyé un message à faculté de psychologie de l'Université Taras Shevchenko de Kiev pendant l'été 2023.

Jury

• German Sumbre, CNRS research director,  Jury president
• Giovanna Ponte, Researcher, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, rapporteur
• Georges Debregeas, CNRS research director, rapporteur
• Aurore Avarguès-Weber, CNRS researcher, examinator
• Claire Wyart, CNRS research director, examinator
• Peter Neri, PhD supervisor

Abstract 

Depuis quelques décennies, le langage inclusif suscite régulièrement de vifs débats de société. Dans ce contexte, la psycholinguistique — la science qui s’intéresse à la compréhension du langage par le cerveau — permet d’apporter un regard scientifique sur certains aspects de ce sujet polémique.

Context:

The auditory system must integrate across many different temporal scales to derive meaning from complex natural sounds such as speech and music. A key challenge is that sound structures – such as phonemes, syllables, and words in speech – have highly variable durations. As a consequence, there is a fundamental difference between integrating across absolute time (e.g., a 100-millisecond window) vs. integrating across sound structure (e.g., a phoneme or word).

I propose that a field’s diversity is affected by what its members believe is required for success: Fields that value exceptional intellectual talent above all else may inadvertently obstruct the participation of women and (some) minority groups. The environment in these fields may be less welcoming to women and minority groups because of the cultural stereotypes that associate intellectual talent -- brilliance, genius, etc. -- with (white) men.

Auditory Ecology: Losing and restoring auditory contact with nature