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Sue Denham

 

Personal photograph uploaded by Sue Denham

Professor Sue Denham

  • Job title: Professor, School of Psychology (Faculty of Science and Technology)
  • Address: A219, Portland Square, Drake Circus,
    Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA
  • Telephone: +441752584913
  • Facsimile: +44 (0)1752 233349
  • Email: S.Denham@plymouth.ac.uk


Role

Professor in Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience

 

Qualifications & background

1995, Ph.D. in Computing, University of Plymouth, Neural Models of Subcortical Auditory Processing

1995, SEDA Teaching in Higher Education

1992, B.Sc. Honours in Computer Science (with distinction), University of South Africa

1980, B.Sc. in Physics (with distinction), University of South Africa

 



Research interests

Sounds provide us with useful information about our environment which complements that provided by other senses. The sound world is essentially transparent; we can perceive many different sounds simultaneously, and from any direction. Sounds are easy to generate and manipulate, and so provide an excellent means for communication. However, it is the very aspects which make sounds useful that pose difficult problems for auditory processing. How does the auditory system disentangle signals from different sound sources? How does the brain form representations which allow it to link intermittent sounds from the same source through time? How does it deal with ambiguity? And how are our expectations molded both by previous experience and the current listening context? The aims of my research are to understand auditory cognition using perceptual experiments and computational models, and to apply this understanding in the development of computationally efficient implementations for practical technological applications, and in the creation of novel devices.


 

 


Publications

Refereed Journal Articles:

  • Adams, S.V., Wennekers, T., Denham, S and Culverhouse, P.F. (2013), ‘Adaptive training of cortical feature maps for a robot sensorimotor controller’, Neural Networks 44:6–21.
  • Mill, R., Bőhm, T., Bendixen, A., Winkler, I., and Denham. S.L. (2013). Modelling the Emergence and Dynamics of Perceptual Organisation in Auditory Streaming. PLoS Comput Biol 9(3): e1002925. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002925
  • Dura-Bernal S, Wennekers T, Denham SL (2012) Top-Down Feedback in an HMAX-Like Cortical Model of Object Perception Based on Hierarchical Bayesian Networks and Belief Propagation. PLoS ONE 7(11): e48216. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048216
  • Humble, J., Denham, S.L., Wennekers, T. (2012,in press). Spatio-temporal pattern recognisers using spiking neurons and spike-timing-dependent plasticity. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience.
  • Denham SL, Bendixen A, Mill R, Toth D, Wennekers T, Coath M, Bőhm T, Szalardy O, Winkler I. (2012). 'Characterising Switching Behaviour in Perceptual Multistability', J Neurosci Methods, 210(1):79-92. Epub 2012 Apr 21.
  • Winkler, I., Denham, S.L., Mill, R., Bőhm, T.M., Bendixen, A. (2012). Multistability in auditory stream segregation: A predictive coding view. Proc. Royal Soc. B Biol Sci. 367(1591):1001-12.
  • Bőhm, T.M., Shestopalova, L., Bendixen, A., Andreou, A.G., Georgiou, J., Garreau, G., Pouliquen, P., Cassidy, A., Denham, S.L., Winkler, I. (2012, in press ). Spatial location of sound sources biases auditory stream segregation but their motion does not. J. Learning & Perception. 
  • Bendixen, A., Bőhm, T.M., Szalárdy, O., Mill, R., Denham, S.L., Winkler, I. (2012, in press). Different roles of similarity and predictability in auditory stream segregation’. J. Learning & Perception.
  • O. Szalárdy, A. Bendixen, D. Tóth, S. L. Denham & I. Winkler (2012, in press). 'Modulation-frequency acts as a primary cue for auditory stream segregation', Special issue of the Journal Learning & Perception.
  • Denham, S.L., Gymesi, K., Stefanics, G., Winkler, I. (2012, in press). 'Multistability in auditory stream segregation: the role of stimulus features in perceptual organisation', Special issue of the Journal Learning & Perception. 
  • Davies, L.A., Garcia-Lazaro, J.A., Schnupp, J., Wennekers, T., Denham, S.L. (2012). Tell me something interesting: Context dependent adaptation in somatosensory cortex Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 210(1):35-48. 2011 Dec 13. [Epub ahead of print]
    1. Sheik, S., Coath, M., Indiveri, G., Denham, S.L., Wennekers,T., Chicca, E. (2012). Emergent auditory feature tuning in areal-time neuromorphic VLSI system’. Frontiers in NeuromorphicEngineering, 6, 10.3389/fnins.2012.00017 
    2. Mill, R., Coath, M., Wennekers, T., Denham, S.L. (2011). 'Characterising Stimulus-Specific Adaptation Using a Multi-Layer Field Model', Brain Res. 2012 Jan 24; 1434:178-88
    3. Mill, R., Sheik, S., Indiveri, G., Denham, S.L. (2011). 'A Model of Stimulus-Specific Adaptation in Neuromorphic  Analog VLSI', IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems; 5(5), 413-419. 
    4. Mill, R., Coath, M., Wennekers, T., Denham, S.L. (2011). 'Novelty and rarity responses in a model of stimulus specific adaptation', PLoS Comput Biol. 2011 Aug;7(8):e1002117. Epub 2011 Aug 18. 
    5. Coath M, Mill R, Denham SL, Wennekers T. (2011). Emergent feature sensitivity in a model of the auditory thalamocortical system. Adv Exp Med Biol.;718:7-17.
    6. Dura-Bernal S, Wennekers T, Denham SL. (2011). The role of feedback in a hierarchical model of object perception. Adv Exp Med Biol.;718:165-79.
    7. Humble J, Furber S, Denham SL, Wennekers T. (2011). STDP Pattern Onset Learning Depends on Background Activity. Adv Exp Med Biol.;718:19-31.
    8. Rumbell, T., Barnden,J., Denham, S.L.,  Wennekers, T. (2011, in press). Emotions in autonomous agents: comparative analysis of mechanisms and functions.  Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.
    9. Mill, R., Coath, M., Wennekers,T., Denham, S.L. (2011). 'Abstract Stimulus-Specific Adaptation Models', Neural Computation. 23(2): 435-76
    10. Bendixen, A., Denham, S.L., Gymesi,K., Winkler, I. (2010). 'Regular patterns stabilize auditory streams', J.Acoust. Soc. Am. 128(6): 3658-66
    11. Lanyon, L.L., Denham, S.L.(2010). ‘Modelling Visual Neglect: Computational Insights into Conscious Perception’, PLoS One, June 2010 | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | e11128. 
    12. Winkler, I., Denham, S.L.,Nelken, I.  (2009). 'Modeling the auditory scene: predictive regularity representations and perceptual objects', Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 13(12):532-40. 
    13. Martin D. Vestergaard, Gábor P.Háden, Yury Shtyrov, Roy D. Patterson, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Sue L. Denham,István Sziller, István Winkler (2009). ‘Auditory size-deviant detection in adults and newborn infants’. Biol Psychol 82, 169-175. 
    14. Ballaguer-Ballester, E., Clark,N., Coath, M., Krumbholz, K., Denham, S.L. (2009). 'Understanding PitchPerception as a Multi-Scale Hierarchical Generative Process', PLoS Computational Biology, 1009 Mar; 5(3). e1000301 
    15. Coath, M., Denham, S.L., Smith,L.M., Honing, H., Hazan, A., Holonowicz, P., Purwins, H. (2009). An auditory model for the detection of perceptual onsets and beat tracking in singing. Connection Science, 21:2, 193-205.
    16. Lanyon, L.J. & Denham, S.L.(2009) Modelling attention in individual cells leads to a system with realistic saccade behaviours. Cogn Neurodyn 3, 223-242 
    17. Ballaguer-Ballester, E.,Denham, S.L., Meddis, R. (2008), 'A cascade autocorrelation model of pitch perception', J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 124(4), 2186-2195. 
    18. Haden, G., Stefanics, G.,Vestergaard, M.D., Denham, S.L., Sziller, I., Winkler, I. (2008).'Timbre-independent extraction of pitch in newborn infants', Psychophysiology,46, 69-74. 
    19. Coath, M., Balaguer-Ballester,E., Denham, S.L., Denham M. (2008). The linearity of emergent spectro-temporal receptive fields in a model of auditory cortex. Biosystems, 94(1-2):60-7. 
    20. Ballaguer-Ballester, E., Coath,M., Denham, S.L. (2007), 'A model of perceptual segregation based on clustering the time series of simulated auditory nerve activity', Biological Cybernetics,97:479-491. 
    21. Coath, M., Denham, S.L. (2007).'The role of onsets in auditory processing', BioSystems, 89(1-3), 182-189.
    22. Denham, S.L. & Winkler, I.(2006). 'The role of predictive models in the formation of auditory streams',J. Physiology Paris, 100, 154-170.
    23. Rafiq, M.Y., Packham, I.S.J.,Easterbrook, D.J., Denham, S.L. (2006). 'Visualising search and solution spaces in the optimum design of biaxial columns', J. Comp. in Civ. Engrg. 20, 88-98.
    24. Coath, M., Brader, J.M., Fusi,S., Denham, S.L. (2005). “Multiple views of the response of an ensemble ofspectrotemporal features support concurrent classification of utterance prosody, sex and speaker identity”, Network: Computation in Neural Systems. Vol16(2/3), p. 285-300.
    25. Packham, I.S.J., Rafiq, M.Y.,Borthwick, M.F., Denham, S.L. (2005). "Interactive visualisation for decisionsupport and evaluation of robustness—in theory and in practice", Advanced Engineering Informatics, 19(4), p. 263-280. 
    26. Coath, M. & Denham, S.L.(2005). “Robust sound classification through the representation of similarityusing response fields derived from stimuli during early experience”. Biological Cybernetics. 93(1): p. 22-30. 
    27. Denham, S.L. (2005)."Dynamic Iterated Ripple Noise: further evidence for the importance oftemporal processing in auditory perception", BioSystems, 79(1-3),199-206.
    28. Khurshid A. & Denham, S.L.(2004). "A Temporal Analysis Based Pitch Estimation System for NoisySpeech with a Comparative Study of Performance of Recent Systems" IEEET ransactions on Neural Networks, Vol. 15(5), 1112-1124.
    29. Lanyon, L. J. & Denham,S.L. (2004). "A model of active visual search with object-based attentionguiding scan paths". Neural Networks, Vol. 17(5-6), 873-897
    30. Lanyon, L. J. & Denham,S.L. (2004). "A biased competition computational model of spatial andobject-based attention mediating active visual search". Neuro Computing,Vol. 58-60C, 655-662. 

    Book Chapters:

    • Denham, S.L., Winkler, I. (2013). Auditory Perceptual Organization. To appear in: Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization, Oxford University Press, Edited by Johan Wagemans
    • Denham, S.L., Dura-Bernal, S., Balaguer-Ballester, E., Coath, M. (2010). Neurocomputational models of perceptual organisation, in Winkler, I. and Czigler, I. (ed.s), 'Unconscious memory representations in perception: Processes and mechanisms in the brain', in the series "Advances in Consciousness", 147-178.
    • Denham, S.L., Gymesi, K., Stefanics, G., Winkler, I. (2009). 'Stability of perceptual organisation in auditory streaming', , in Lopez-Poveda, E.A., Palmer, A.R., Meddis, R. (ed.s) 'The Neurophysiological Bases of Auditory Perception', Springer, 477-488.
    • Ballaguer-Ballester, E., Clark, N., Coath, M., Krumbholz, K., Denham, S.L. (2009). 'Understanding Pitch Perception as a Multi-Scale Hierarchical Generative Process', in Lopez-Poveda, E.A., Palmer, A.R., Meddis, R. (ed.s) 'The Neurophysiological Bases of Auditory Perception', Springer, 201-210.
    • Lanyon, L. J. & Denham, S.L. (2005) A model of spatial & object-based attention for active visual search. Modelling Language, Cognition and Action: Proceedings of the 9th Neural Computation & Psychology Workshop. Eds: A Cangelosi, G Bugmann, R Borisyuk. World Scientific, Progress in Neural Processing, 16, 239-248
    • Lanyon, L.J. & Denham, S.L. (2004) A model of active visual search with object-based attention guiding scan paths'. Grossberg, S, Finkel, L, Field, D (ed.s) Vision and the Brain: How ther brain sees; new approaches to computer vision:873-97.
    • Denham, S.L. (2001). "Cortical synaptic depression and auditory perception". In Computational Models of Auditory Function, Greenberg S, Slaney M (ed.s), NATO ASI Series, IOS Press, Amsterdam, 281-296.
    • Denham, S.L. & Denham, M.J. (2001). "An investigation into the role of cortical synaptic depression in auditory processing". In Emergent Neural Computational Architectures based on Neuroscience, Wermter S, Austin J, Willshaw D (ed.s), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Springer, 494-506.

    Conference Proceedings: 

    • Winkler, I., Bőhm, T.M., Bendixen, A., Mill, R.W., & Denham, S.L. (2012). Modeling auditory stream segregation by predictive processes. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom) (pp. 479-483). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). DOI: 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2012.6422029.
    • Dura-Bernal, S., Garreau, G., Andreou, C., Andreou, A.G., Georgiou, J., Wennekers, T., Denham, S.L. (2011). In Human Behavior Understanding, Salah, A.A., Lepri, B. (eds.), Lecture Notes in computer Science, 7065, 18-28, doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-25446-8
    • Georgiou, J. et al. (2011). A multimodal-corpus data collection system for cognitive acoustic scene analysis, 45th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, 7-12.
    • Salvador Dura-Bernal, Thomas Wennekers, Susan L. Denham (2011). Modelling object perception in cortex using hierarchical Bayesian networks and belief propagation, 45th International Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Johns Hopkins University, USA, 23-25 March 2011.
    • Robert Mill, Tamás Bőhm, Alexandra Bendixen, István Winkler, and Susan L. Denham (2011). CHAINS: Competition and Cooperation between Fragmentary Event Predictors in a Model of Auditory Scene Analysis, 45th International Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Johns Hopkins University, USA, 23-25 March 2011.
    • Susan L. Denham, Kinga Gyimesi, Gábor Stefanics, and István Winkler (2009). Stability of perceptual organisation in streaming.  International Symposium on Hearing, Salamanca,June 2009.
    • Ballaguer-Ballester, E., Clark,N., Coath, M., Krumbholz, K., Denham, S.L., (2009). 'Understanding PitchPerception as a Multi-Scale Hierarchical Generative Process', International Symposium on Hearing, Salamanca, June 2009.
    • Ernest Montbrió, Rita Almeida,Johan Larsson, Sue Denham and Gustavo Deco (2008). 'A model of the primary auditory cortex response to sequences of pure tones', CNS2008, Portland,Oregon, USA, July 19-24 2008.
    • Stefanics G., Háden G., SzillerI., Huotilainen M., Vestergaard M.D., Balázs L., Beke A., Fellman V., DenhamS.L., Winkler I. Higher-level auditory skills in newborn infants. FENS2008 (6thForum of European Neuroscience Societies), Geneva, Switzerland, July 12-16 2008
    • Cassidy , A. (JHU), Denham,S.L. (UoP), Kanold, P. (UMaryland), Andreou, A. (JHU). FPGA Based SiliconSpiking Neural Array. IEEE BioCAS 2007, Biomedical Circuits and SystemsConference, Montreal, Canada, Nov 2007
    • Coath, M., Denham, S.L., Smith,L.M., Honing, H., Hazan, A., Holonowicz, P., Purwins, H. (2007). An auditory model for the detection of perceptual onsets and beat tracking in singing.Neural Information Processing Systems, Workshop on Music Processing in theBrain, Vanc., Dec  2007.
    • Balaguer-Ballester, E., Coath,M., Denham, S.L. A firing-rate hierarchical model of temporal integration inpitch perception. In: Coherent behavior in neuronal networks, Palma deMallorca, Spain.  October 17-20 2007.
    • Denham, S.L., Coath, M.,Balaguer-Ballester, E. Sparse Time-Frequency representations in auditory processing, 19th Int. Congress on Acoustics, Madrid, September 2007.
    • Denham, S.L. and M. Coath. A model based upon response fields derived during early experience can account for the interference effects of synthetically degraded speech signals. inPSP2005: ISCA Workshop on Plasticity in Speech Perception. 2005. London.