A Dynamical System Approach to the Cocktail Party Problem: Using Optics Instead of your Brain to Separate Signals

Marty Baylor
Physics Department
Carleton College

Have you ever been at a noisy party and been able to pick out what the person in front of you is saying? If so, then you are intimately aware of the fact that your brain is able to solve the cocktail party problem. How does your brain separate one signal from a mixture of signals? I have no idea, but I have been working with a half optical, half electronic system that is able to mimic that behavior. The optoelectronic system uses dynamic holography combined with non-linearities of an electro-optic modulator in a feedback loop to solve the cocktail party problem. By analyzing the dynamics of the feedback loop, we have discovered that under certain conditions the feedback loop likes to separate signals. Moreover it doesn't need to know what the signals are or how they are mixed together**. I invite you to come and find out about this truly fascinating system.

**As always, there are caveats, but they are small and not very limiting.