Do you want to know more about our #research? Check our new website: https://t.co/R6sXAZUfM9 #auditory #neuroscience

The early-bird registration has been extended to the 10th June! This first round of application will be evaluated soon after that. There are still a few spots available!

New brain/language study w/ @ev_fedorenko! We applied task-agnostic individualized functional connectomics (iFC) to the entire history of fMRI in the Fedorenko lab, parcellating nearly 1200 brains into networks based on activity fluctuations alone. https://t.co/hJQRfIDQfQ . 🧵

These findings suggest that training which taxes attention, memory, and production but is not perceptually taxing may be a way to boost neural encoding of sound and auditory pattern detection in individuals with poor auditory skills. 🧵6/6

However, they didn’t show advantage in fine sound discrimination, which was instead linked to musical experience, suggesting that low-level auditory processing can only be enhanced by demanding perceptual training. 🧵5/6

We found that the consistency of neural sound encoding, prosody and musical phrase perception are enhanced in voice actors, suggesting that a range of neural and behavioural auditory processing enhancements can result from training which lacks fine perceptual precision. 🧵4/6

@mkachlicka @AdamTTierney @bbkpsychology @BirkbeckUoL We compared voice actors and a group of non-actors matched in musical training and assessed their neural encoding of pitch 🧠 , as well as their prosody 💬, music 🎵, and sound perception 🔉. 🧵3/6

@mkachlicka @AdamTTierney @bbkpsychology @BirkbeckUoL Professional 🎙️voice actors 🎙️ exaggerate prosodic patterns to convey emotion, character or accents, drawing upon auditory attention, memory, and accurate sound production, but not fine perceptual precision. 🧵2/6

Are high perceptual precision demands always necessary for training to drive auditory neural plasticity? 🧠 🔊🎙️ Find out more in this cool study with voice actors https://t.co/m0oRQNMgso by @mkachlicka & @AdamTTierney @bbkpsychology @BirkbeckUoL #auditory #neuroscience 🧵1/6

@bbkpsychology This supports the idea that the brain doesn’t only map physical locations but also structures abstract knowledge in a similar way. Our findings take this a step further, revealing that spatial neural resources are not just engaged but necessary for such mental organization. 🧵4/4

@bbkpsychology A second experiment showed that when spatial thinking was disrupted, people struggled to mentally navigate sound, indicating that the brain’s navigation system isn’t just involved—it’s essential for this process. 🧵3/4

@bbkpsychology When participants imagined changes in sound, like a pitch rising or falling, or a note getting longer or shorter, their brains showed grid-like activity in the entorhinal cortex, the same neural pattern used for physical navigation. 🧵2/4

Our brains have an internal GPS that guides us through physical space. But does it do more than that? A recent preprint from the lab shows that the brain’s navigation system also maps sound🧠🌎🔉#auditory #neuroscience @bbkpsychology Read more here: https://t.co/Q9nZvnDv5p 🧵1/4

These findings suggest that tone language experience does not increase the tendency for pitch to capture attention, regardless of task. Instead, tone language speakers may better direct attention to pitch when it is task-relevant, without affecting pitch salience. 🧵4/4

Musical experience moderated these effects, enhancing attention to duration in Mandarin musicians. Contrary to predictions, first language did not affect cortical tracking, but Mandarin speakers showed enhanced early pitch encoding. 🧵3/4

In this paper, we investigated how prior experience influences salience and attention to acoustic dimensions in speech and music. Mandarin speakers outperformed English speakers in attending to pitch and placed more weight on pitch when categorising speech and music. 🧵2/4

What factors determine the importance placed on different sources of evidence during speech and music perception?🧠💬👂🎶 New research by @mkachlicka @aesymons @KazuyaSLA Fred Dick @AdamTTierney https://t.co/k0Cy6HBQ80 #auditory #neuroscience @bbkpsychology @ImagingNeurosci 🧵1/4

Our new paper is out in Journal of Experimental Psychology HPP. We redefine ①what auditory processing is, ②how they can be measured, & ③how they differently impact L2 learning outcomes. https://t.co/cnsawEYeyR Funded by @LeverhulmeTrust & Materials deposited @L2SpeechTools

⏰CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS⏰ I'm looking for London-based #participants who would like to take part in an fMRI study and gain insight into how our brains process second language speech 🧠🧠🧠#auditory #neuroscience @bbkpsychology @BirkbeckUoL @bbkpsychosocial Please share!

Wednesday 25/09 at 12:00 PM ET 🎶🔉💬 Join @AROMWM seminar to hear from Aniruddh D Patel about the influences of musical training on speech processing. Discussion modereated by Robert Zatorre @zatorrelab #speech #music #research Check ⬇️ for more details and how to join

Stronger increase in consecutive stimuli compared to interleaved presentation and more-song like ratings of familiar phrases compared to novel ones provide evidence for the role of rapid stimulus-specific learning and memory in speech-to-song illusion. 🧵5/5