Credits: Image: M. Scott Brauer Caption: Developing these new computation models would be a major step toward developing new ways to help people who suffer from hearing loss, says McDermott, who recently earned tenure in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Credits: Image: M. Scott Brauer Previous image Next image The human auditory system is a marvel of biology. It can follow a conversation in a noisy restaurant, learn to recognize words from languages we’ve never heard before, and identify a familiar colleague by their footsteps as they walk by our office. So far, even the most sophisticated computational models cannot perform such tasks as well as the human auditory system, but MIT neuroscientist Josh McDermott hopes to change that. Achieving this goal would be a major step toward developing new ways to help people with hearing loss, says McDermott, who recently earned tenure in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.