Sensing
Perception &
INtelligence (SPIN) Lab

We are a research group exploring sensory interactions to understand how humans perceive the world and build intelligence. In our work, we enjoy conversing using the language of signal processing, machine (deep) learning, and enriching our understanding using psychology, neuroscience and AI. We think our explorations are critical in enabling an AI-augmented humane future.

Does the above relate to your interests? Join our team (more info) or sponsor our lab!

What is

  • Sensing(click)
    We are immersed in signals, and it is by sensing them that we get data into our brain. These sensors (eyes, ears, skin, nose) have evolved under neurophysiological and evolutionary constraints. Exploring human intelligence by understanding the very first step of how a continuous-time (or space) signal (like image, sound, touch, odor, etc.) is converted to a discrete sequence of samples in the peripheral sensory system will benefit the design of efficient sampling strategies for various kinds of sensory data.
  • Perception(click)
    The sensed signal is processed by the human brain to obtain quantitative (or qualitative) estimates of the attributes. This process is referred to as perception. While listening to music we perceive the loudness, pitch, timbre, location, and distance etc., of the sound source. Similar estimates for other sensory signals are obtained by the brain. This enables the brain to build a mental model of the outside world. In a way, perception is analogous to the feature extraction step in machine learning. Knowing what humans perceive, and designing mathematical models which enables predicting human perception is a challenging (and rewarding) problem in AI.
  • Intelligence(click)
    The perceived attributes are utilized by the brain to build a mental model of the outside world. This is referred to as cognition, and one output of this is behavior. Understanding cognition is critical to design machines which interact with humans.

Through our work, we aim to unify these three concepts and build solutions. Frankly, this is very interesting work, with lots of open questions.

Computer man

Say Hey!
Feel free to drop an email to Neeraj. We will be happy to learn about the challenges you are tackling, and if it helps, discuss ways to collaborate with you. (Thanks to Jan Van Balen for the GIF).

We are located in IIT Guwahati. Our campus is calm and vibrant, bio-diverse and fondly popular in India as (most!) heavenly (see Pictures).

News

Mar 2024-

Congratulations to Sneha on the acceptance of her work on analyzing vowel harmony with GAN and raw audio in LabPhon19 Conference!

Dec 2023-

Analyzing silences in speech! Check out our paper in SPECOM 2023

Jul 2023-

Respiratory sound signals database for COVID-19 screening is documented and published as a Scientific Data paper in Nature

Jun 2023-

Our work on analyzing processing of ITD-ILD cues using reaction time is accepted in JASA Express Letters

Feb 2023-

Check out The Curious Case of Sound, a TEDx talk delivered by Neeraj!

Sept 2022-

Namaste! Welcome to our website!

July 2022-

Neeraj joins IIT Guwahati as an Assistant Professor.

... see all News