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Ben J. Arthur     (WEB PAGE) bja28 @ cornell.edu W253 Mudd Hall      607-254-4317 or -4349   [edit] Research Associate Department: Neurobiology and Behavior Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (3), Auditory Neuroscience (5), Cognitive Neuroscience (17), Computational Neuroscience (13), Language (5), Neuroethology (24), Sensorimotor Systems (11), Systems Neuroscience (25) Neuroscience-related courses taught Instructor: BIOG 400N: Neuroscience Instructor: BIONB 222: Introduction to Neurobiology Instructor: BIONB 420/720: The Neural Basis of Hearing I am interested in elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying behaviorally-relevant computations. Put simply, the brain is a big computer and I want to reverse engineer it. I focus on two behaviors mediated by the auditory system in particular: sound localization and, to a lesser extent, speech recognition. Collectively, determining what the sound is and where it's coming from are the two main tasks the auditory system of any species must solve. My study species of choice are Ormia ochracea and barn owls. The former are flies which parasitize crickets by using them as hosts for larvae; the latter are nocturnal predators which rely on field mice for food. In both cases, a highly-developed and specialized auditory system is used to both recognize and localize their targets. What drew me to studying neuroscience, instead of continuing my undergraduate education in computer science and psychology, was a disappointment with the design and performance of the algorithms used by the artificial intelligence community. My hope is to facilitate better progress towards the creation of an intelligent machine through delineating how nervous systems solve similar computational problems.

Please report corrections, questions, comments, and problems to: Lori Miller (lmm8 AT cornell.edu)