Speech Science Forum -- Pavo Orepić
Voices and Robots: From self-voice misperceptions to robotically-induced hallucinations
Speech Science Forum -- Pavo Orepić
12 Dec 2024, 15:00 – 16:00
Why does our own voice sound unnatural to us and what does it have to do with hallucinations? Inspired by the prominent theory suggesting that auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVH) – colloquially “hearing voices” – arise as misattributions of self-generated speech, my PhD thesis revolved around self-voice perception and the experimental induction of self-other voice misattribution in healthy participants, mimicking the AVH phenomenology. In this talk, I will present key findings from my thesis. First, I will outline some behavioral, neural, and clinical factors underlying self-other voice discrimination. Second, I will illustrate how we induced AVH-like sensations in healthy, non-hallucinating individuals using a robotic procedure. Together, I will argue that self-voice is much more than just an auditory stimulus – it is a multisensory construct whose (mis)perception could potentially serve as a clinical biomarker for deficits in self-consciousness.
Zoom link: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/92052680901
After completing his undergraduate (2014, University of Zagreb, Croatia) and graduate (2016, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) studies in computer science, Pavo Orepić earned a PhD in neuroscience from EPFL in Switzerland in 2020, focusing on self-voice perception and inducing auditory verbal hallucinations in healthy participants. His PhD was nominated for several awards, including EPFL’s Best PhD of the Year, and his research has received international attention, including two interviews with The New York Times. In June 2024, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Geneva, studying neuronal population dynamics underlying speech and inner speech using intracranial EEG in epilepsy patients. In September 2024, he began a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Zurich, investigating the acoustics behind (own) voice identity perception.