# AAD-LLM: Neural Attention-Driven Auditory Scene Understanding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16794 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16794/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [HuBERT: Self-Supervised Speech Representation Learning by Masked Prediction of Hidden Units](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07447/) (2021)
- [Qwen2 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10671/) (2024)
- [WavLM: Large-Scale Self-Supervised Pre-Training for Full Stack Speech Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13900/) (2021)
- [LibriTTS: A Corpus Derived from LibriSpeech for Text-to-Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02882/) (2019)
- [Qwen-Audio: Advancing Universal Audio Understanding via Unified Large-Scale Audio-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07919/) (2023)
- [PANNs: Large-Scale Pretrained Audio Neural Networks for Audio Pattern Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.10211/) (2019)
- [SDR - half-baked or well done?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.02508/) (2018)
- [BEATs: Audio Pre-Training with Acoustic Tokenizers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09058/) (2022)
- [MMAU: A Massive Multi-Task Audio Understanding and Reasoning Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19168/) (2024)
- [GAMA: A Large Audio-Language Model with Advanced Audio Understanding and Complex Reasoning Abilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11768/) (2024)
- [StyleTTS 2: Towards Human-Level Text-to-Speech through Style Diffusion and Adversarial Training with Large Speech Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07691/) (2023)
- [Interpreting and improving natural-language processing (in machines) with natural language-processing (in the brain)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11833/) (2019)
- [NeuroLM: A Universal Multi-task Foundation Model for Bridging the Gap between Language and EEG Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.00101/) (2024)
- [TextrolSpeech: A Text Style Control Speech Corpus With Codec Language Text-to-Speech Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14430/) (2023)
- [Dual-path Mamba: Short and Long-term Bidirectional Selective Structured State Space Models for Speech Separation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18257/) (2024)
- [EEG-GPT: Exploring Capabilities of Large Language Models for EEG Classification and Interpretation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.18006/) (2024)
- [Speech Slytherin: Examining the Performance and Efficiency of Mamba for Speech Separation, Recognition, and Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09732/) (2024)
- [EEG-based Auditory Attention Decoding: Towards Neuro-Steered Hearing Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.04569/) (2020)
- [Improving Semantic Understanding in Speech Language Models via Brain-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.09230/) (2024)
- [Just ASR + LLM? A Study on Speech Large Language Models' Ability to Identify and Understand Speaker in Spoken Dialogue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04927/) (2024)
- [NeuroHeed+: Improving Neuro-steered Speaker Extraction with Joint Auditory Attention Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07513/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Bridging Ears and Eyes: Analyzing Audio and Visual Large Language Models to Humans in Visible Sound Recognition and Reducing Their Sensory Gap via Cross-Modal Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06803/) (2025)
- [Cocktail-Talker: Multi-Speaker Dialog Modeling in Noisy Social Environments with Turn Action GRPO](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.27756/) (2026)
- [Scaling Auditory Cognition via Test-Time Compute in Audio Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.23395/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Auditory foundation models, including auditory large language models (LLMs), process all sound inputs equally, independent of listener perception. However, human auditory perception is inherently selective: listeners focus on specific speakers while ignoring others in complex auditory scenes. Existing models do not incorporate this selectivity, limiting their ability to generate perception-aligned responses. To address this, we introduce Intention-Informed Auditory Scene Understanding (II-ASU) and present Auditory Attention-Driven LLM (AAD-LLM), a prototype system that integrates brain signals to infer listener attention. AAD-LLM extends an auditory LLM by incorporating intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings to decode which speaker a listener is attending to and refine responses accordingly. The model first predicts the attended speaker from neural activity, then conditions response generation on this inferred attentional state. We evaluate AAD-LLM on speaker description, speech transcription and extraction, and question answering in multitalker scenarios, with both objective and subjective ratings showing improved alignment with listener intention. By taking a first step toward intention-aware auditory AI, this work explores a new paradigm where listener perception informs machine listening, paving the way for future listener-centered auditory systems. Demo and code available: https://aad-llm.github.io.