Blog
Fascinating research on how the brain processes music and rhythm, and the role of motor areas of the brain in beat perception. Interview with Dr. Jessica Grahn, a former colleague of mine at Cambridge, and now at the University of Western Ontario.
Sound Confessions is a fascinating and revealing blog written by a young woman who received a cochlear implant in 2012 at the age of 21. She's had a busy year:
I came into 2012 as a female human being.
I leave 2012 as a cyborg.
Granted, I don’t have super strength, the ability to fly, deathly laser beams, or retractable claws.
But I’m still a freaking cyborg!
I look forward to reading more!
UPDATE: We no longer have any positions open. Thank you for your interest.
The Peelle Lab is currently accepting undergraduate volunteers interested in gaining research experience. We are a brand new cognitive neuroscience lab in the Department of Otolaryngology, on the medical campus. Our research is focused on how the brain understands speech. To study this question we make use of both behavioral tests and neuroimaging tools such as structural and functional MRI. There are openings for several undergraduate researchers for Spring 2013. Background is not so important—most volunteers come from psychology, biomedical engineering, biology, linguistics, or computer science. Being independently motivated and excited about research, on the other hand, is critical! Exceptional students may have the opportunity to design their own research projects.
Helen Willis is a university student who has had bilateral cochlear implants since she was young. In this short documentary she speaks eloquently about both the challenge of living with reduced sensory input and the joy of life.
Just out in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is a short opinion piece on whether speech is processed mostly in both hemispheres, or preferentially in the left hemisphere. The bottom line is that it depends on whether "speech" refers to speech-like sounds, words, or connected speech (e.g., sentences). Although this might seem an obvious point, it's one that fairly regularly gets glossed over in the literature.
It's a short read, but there are two main points worth emphasizing, one more theoretical:
Phonological and lexical information is processed largely bilaterally in temporal cortex, whereas connected speech relies on a left-hemisphere pathway that includes left inferior frontal gyrus. Importantly, the distinction between unconnected and connected speech is not dichotomous, but follows a gradient of laterality depending on the cognitive processes required: lateralization emerges largely as a result of increased linguistic processing.
and one more methodological:
[F]or true claims of differential hemispheric contributions to speech processing, the left and right hemisphere responses need to be directly compared...In the absence of these or similar statistical comparisons, any statements about lateralization of processing need to be made (and taken) lightly.
See the Frontiers website for the whole article.
