Recognition of sounds by ensembles of proteinoids

Proteinoids are artificial polymers that imitate certain characteristics of natural proteins, including self-organization, catalytic activity, and responsiveness to external stimuli. This paper investigates the potential of proteinoids as organic audio signal processors. We convert sounds of English alphabet into waveforms of electrical potential, feed the waveforms into proteinoid solutions and record electrical responses of the proteinoids. We also undertake a detailed comparison of proteinoids’ electrical responses (frequencies, periods, and amplitudes) with original input signals. We found that responses of proteinoids are less regular, lower dominant frequency, wider distribution of proteinoids and less skewed distribution of amplitudes compared with input signals. We found that letter of English alphabet uniquely maps onto a pattern of electrical activity of a proteinoid ensemble, that is the proteinoid ensembles recognise spoken letters of English alphabet. The finding will be used in further designs of organic electronic devices, based on ensembles of proteinoids, for sound processing and speech recognition.