Dr. Giovanni Di Liberto
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Assistant Professor, Trinity Inst. of Neurosciences (TCIN)
Biography
Giovanni received his Bachelor's degree in Information Engineering in 2011 and his Master's degree in Computer Engineering in 2013, both from the University of Padova, Italy. After a period working on his thesis at University College Cork (UCC, Ireland), he joined Edmund Lalor's research lab in Trinity College Dublin where he pursued a PhD in auditory neuroscience in the School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering. He received his PhD in 2017 and he joined the Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs at École Normale Superieure (Paris) immediately after, under the supervision of Alain de Cheveigné and Shihab Shamma. He holds the title of Assistant Professor in Intelligent Systems in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin.
Giovanni's scientific interests centre on understanding the brain mechanisms underlying speech comprehension. In his work, he develops data analysis methods and applies them to brain data to identify the neural processes responsible for the transformation of a sensory stimulus into its abstract meaning. Brain electrical data is measured with either non-invasive (e.g., electroencephalography) or invasive (e.g., electrocorticography, ECoG) technologies. The first aspect of his research is methodological and has produced novel experimental and analysis frameworks to investigate cortical auditory processing. The second aspect of his research is to use such novel methods to test theories on auditory perception, such as the hierarchical processing of speech and predictive processing theories (e.g. predictive coding). Finally, the third part of his work is translational and involves the identification of solutions to utilise his novel methods in applied settings, for example as tools to develop brain-computer interfaces (COCOHA project) or as objective measures for the monitoring of language development and healthy ageing.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
HjortkjÊr, Jens and Wong, Daniel D.E. and Catania, Alessandro and MÀrcher-RÞrsted, Jonatan and Ceolini, Enea and Fuglsang, SÞren and Kiselev, Ilya and Liberto, Giovanni Di and Liu, Shih-Chii and Dau, Torsten and Slaney, Malcolm and de Cheveigné, Alain, Real-time control of a hearing instrument with EEG-based attention decoding, 2024, -
Keshavarzi, Mahmoud and Di Liberto, Giovanni M and Gabrielczyk, Fiona and Wilson, Angela and Macfarlane, Annabel and Goswami, Usha, Atypical speech production of multisyllabic words and phrases by children with developmental dyslexia, Developmental science, 27, (1), 2024, pe13428
Tan, Sok Hui Jessica and Kalashnikova, Marina and Di Liberto, Giovanni M and Crosse, Michael J and Burnham, Denis, Seeing a Talking Face Matters: Gaze Behavior and the Auditory-Visual Speech Benefit in Adults' Cortical Tracking of Infant-directed Speech, Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 35, (11), 2023, p1741â"1759
Carta S, Mangiacotti AMA, Valdes AL, Reilly RB, Franco F, Di Liberto GM., The impact of temporal synchronisation imprecision on TRF analyses., Journal of neuroscience methods, 385, 2023, p109765
Klimovich-Gray Anastasi, Di Liberto Giovann, Amoruso Luci, Barrena Ande, Agirre Enek, Molinaro Nicol, Increased top-down semantic processing in natural speech linked to better reading in dyslexia, NeuroImage, 273, 2023, p120072-
Giovanni M. Di Liberto, Adam Attaheri, Giorgia Cantisani, Richard B. Reilly, Áine Ní Choisdealbha, Sinead Rocha, Perrine Brusini & Usha Goswami, Emergence of the cortical encoding of phonetic features in the first year of life, Nature Communications, (14), 2023
Jessica Tan SH, Kalashnikova M, Di Liberto GM, Crosse MJ, Burnham D., Seeing a talking face matters: The relationship between cortical tracking of continuous auditory-visual speech and gaze behaviour in infants, children and adults., NeuroImage, 256, 2022, p119217
Attaheri A, Panayiotou D, Phillips A, Ní Choisdealbha Á, Di Liberto GM, Rocha S, Brusini P, Mead N, Flanagan S, Olawole-Scott H, Goswami U., Cortical Tracking of Sung Speech in Adults vs Infants: A Developmental Analysis., Frontiers in neuroscience, 16, 2022, p842447
Di Liberto GM, Nie J, Yeaton J, Khalighinejad B, Shamma SA, Mesgarani N., Neural representation of linguistic feature hierarchy reflects second-language proficiency., NeuroImage, 227, 2021, p117586
Guilhem Marion and Giovanni M. Di Liberto and Shihab A. Shamma, The Music of Silence. Part I: Responses to Musical Imagery Encode Melodic Expectations and Acoustics, The Journal of Neuroscience, 2021, pJN--RM--0183--21
Broderick, M.P., Di Liberto, G.M., Anderson, A.J., Rofes, A., Lalor, E.C., Dissociable electrophysiological measures of natural language processing reveal differences in speech comprehension strategy in healthy ageing, Scientific Reports, 11, (1), 2021
Giovanni M. Di Liberto and Michele Barsotti and Giovanni Vecchiato and Jonas Ambeck-Madsen and Maria Del Vecchio and Pietro Avanzini and Luca Ascari, Robust anticipation of continuous steering actions from electroencephalographic data during simulated driving, Scientific Reports, 11, (1), 2021
Giovanni M. Di Liberto and Guilhem Marion and Shihab A. Shamma, The music of silence. Part II: Music Listening Induces Imagery Responses, The Journal of Neuroscience, 2021, pJN--RM--0184--21
O'Sullivan, A.E., Crosse, M.J., Di Liberto, G.M., de Cheveigné, A., Lalor, E.C., Neurophysiological indices of audiovisual speech processing reveal a hierarchy of multisensory integration effects, Journal of Neuroscience, 41, (23), 2021, p4991-5003
Jonas Ambeck-Madsen, Andrea Bellotti, Giovanni M Di Liberto, Luca Ascari, Alessia Colucciello, 'Computer-implemented method, data-processing device, non-invasive brain-computer interface system and non-transitory computer readable medium', US Patent Office, US20210365115A1, 2021
Giovanni Di Liberto, Accurate Decoding of Imagined and Heard Melodies, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 15, 2021
Di Liberto, Giovanni M and Marion, Guilhem and Shamma, Shihab A, The Music of Silence: Part II: Music Listening Induces Imagery Responses, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 41, (35), 2021, p7449â"7460
Aisling E. O"Sullivan, Michael J. Crosse, Giovanni M. Di Liberto, Alain de Cheveigné, Edmund C. Lalor, Neurophysiological indices of audiovisual speech integration are enhanced at the phonetic level for speech in noise, 2020
Di Liberto, G.M., Pelofi, C., Bianco, R., Patel, P., Mehta, A.D., Herrero, J.L., de Cheveigné, A., Shamma, S., Mesgarani, N., Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex, eLife, 9, 2020
Di Liberto, G.M., Pelofi, C., Shamma, S., de Cheveigné, A., Musical expertise enhances the cortical tracking of the acoustic envelope during naturalistic music listening, Acoustical Science and Technology, 41, (1), 2020, p361-364
de Cheveigné, A., Di Liberto, G.M., Arzounian, D., Wong, D.D.E., Hjortkjær, J., Fuglsang, S., Parra, L.C., Multiway canonical correlation analysis of brain data, NeuroImage, 186, 2019, p728-740
Di Liberto, G.M., Wong, D., Melnik, G.A., de Cheveigné, A., Low-frequency cortical responses to natural speech reflect probabilistic phonotactics, NeuroImage, 196, 2019, p237-247
Di Liberto, G.M. and Peter, V. and Kalashnikova, M. and Goswami, U. and Burnham, D. and Lalor, E.C., Atypical cortical entrainment to speech in the right hemisphere underpins phonemic deficits in dyslexia, NeuroImage, 175, 2018, p70-79
Di Liberto, G.M., Wong, D., Melnik, G.A., de Cheveigné, A., Cortical responses to natural speech reflect probabilistic phonotactics, bioRxiv, 2018
Broderick, M.P. and Anderson, A.J. and Di Liberto, G.M. and Crosse, M.J. and Lalor, E.C., Electrophysiological Correlates of Semantic Dissimilarity Reflect the Comprehension of Natural, Narrative Speech, Current Biology, 28, (5), 2018, p803-809.e3
de Cheveigné, A. and Wong, D.E. and Di Liberto, G.M. and HjortkjÊr, J. and Slaney, M. and Lalor, E., Decoding the auditory brain with canonical component analysis, NeuroImage, 172, 2018, p206-216
Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C. and Millman, R.E., Causal cortical dynamics of a predictive enhancement of speech intelligibility, NeuroImage, 166, 2018, p247-258
Kalashnikova, M. and Peter, V. and Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C. and Burnham, D., Infant-directed speech facilitates seven-month-old infantsâ cortical tracking of speech, Scientific Reports, 8, (1), 2018
Di Liberto, G.M. and Crosse, M.J. and Lalor, E.C., Cortical measures of phoneme-level speech encoding correlate with the perceived clarity of natural speech, eNeuro, 5, (2), 2018
Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C., Indexing cortical entrainment to natural speech at the phonemic level: Methodological considerations for applied research, Hearing Research, 348, 2017, p70-77
O'Sullivan, A.E. and Crosse, M.J. and Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C., Visual cortical entrainment to motion and categorical speech features during silent lipreading, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, (679), 2017
Di Liberto, G., Kadioglu, S., Leo, K., Malitsky, Y., DASH: Dynamic approach for switching heuristics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 9892 LNCS, 2016, p886
Di Liberto, G., Kadioglu, S., Leo, K., Malitsky, Y., DASH: Dynamic approach for switching heuristics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 9892 LNCS, 2016, p886
Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C., Isolating neural indices of continuous speech processing at the phonetic level, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 894, 2016, p337-345
Crosse, M.J. and Di Liberto, G.M. and Lalor, E.C., Eye can hear clearly now: Inverse effectiveness in natural audiovisual speech processing relies on long-term crossmodal temporal integration, Journal of Neuroscience, 36, (38), 2016, p9888-9895
Crosse, M.J. and Di Liberto, G.M. and Bednar, A. and Lalor, E.C., The multivariate temporal response function (mTRF) toolbox: A MATLAB toolbox for relating neural signals to continuous stimuli, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, (NOV2016), 2016
Di Liberto GM, O'Sullivan JA, Lalor EC, Low-Frequency Cortical Entrainment to Speech Reflects Phoneme-Level Processing., Current biology : CB, 25, (19), 2015, p2457-65
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Carta Sara, AliÄ koviÄ Emina, Zaar Johannes, López Valdes Alejandro, Di Liberto Giovanni, INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO Y DE ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES DE MONTERREY, Cortical over-representation of phonetic onsets of ignored speech in hearing impaired individuals, Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual International Conference, 2023, 2023, 1 - 4
Attaheri, A., Choisdealbha, Á.N., Di Liberto, G.M., Rocha, S., Brusini, P., Mead, N., Olawole-Scott, H., Boutris, P., Gibbon, S., Williams, I., Grey, C., Flanagan, S., Goswami, U., Delta- And theta-band cortical tracking and phase-amplitude coupling to sung speech by infants, bioRxiv, 2020
Wong, D.D.E., Di Liberto, G.M., de Cheveigné, A., Accurate Modeling of Brain Responses to Speech, bioRxiv, 2018
Research Expertise
Recognition
Representations
Guest editor in Frontiers in Neuroscience
Reviewer for the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference 2019
Awards and Honours
Special commendation - IRC Best young research of the year award 2022
William Demant Foundation + SFI/CRT-AI - "Investigating the hierarchical neural mechanisms of attention switching" (€165,000)
IRC ULYSSES Scheme, Joint project with Yves Boubenec's team, ENS Paris (€2,500)
Research Boost Programme, Trinity College Dublin (22,104)
William Demant Foundation Grant (supporting one MSc-by-research student), 13,383
Dunhill Medical Trust Research Project Grant, PI: Prof. Fabia Franco, Middlesex University, £299,202 (Co-PI's portion: 8,576)
. IRC ULYSSES Scheme, "Joint prediction of audio and brain signals", 5000
Irish Research Council, Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, 96,000
Invited Young Lecturer - Universal Acoustical Communication Symposium, Sendai (Japan), ¥200,000
Travel grant - Neuroscience Ireland, travel award to the Society for Neuroscience meeting, 300
Best oral presentation award, 3rd prize - Cognitive Science Arena, Brixen (Italy)
Travel grant - Guarantors of Brain, travel award to visit Dr. Rebecca Millman at York Neuroimaging Centre, University of York (UK), £350
Best oral presentation award, 1st prize - Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Winter Symposium
Scholarship, 20th Jelinek Summer Workshop in Speech and Language Technology, University of Washington Visiting International Student Internship Training Program. $14,500
Best poster presentation award - Young Neuroscientists Symposium, Dublin.
Luciano Iglesias foundation award for graduate students in computer engineering, 1,000
Memberships
Member of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology
Member of ALBA network (The ALBA Declaration on Equity and Inclusion is a resource for concrete, positive, evidence-based actions that individuals and organizations at any level can take to promote equity and inclusivity)