Selective Attention Across the Auditory System

Humans are remarkably adept at listening to one person talking in the presence of substantial background noise, solving the so-called cocktail party problem. What does this look like in the brain? In this research webinar, Ross Maddox, Ph.D., will discuss how we can measure the electrical activity in humans listening to natural speech to get a glimpse of how selective attention impacts the neural encoding of speech, both in the cortex and in much lower levels of the auditory system. Maddox is an associate professor at the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan, with his previous appointment at the University of Rochester. The Maddox Lab uses electroencephalography (measuring electric potentials on the scalp corresponding to brain activity) and psychophysics (measuring behavior) together in human subjects to investigate the processes that underpin selective attention and listening in general—comprising an interplay of basic science, clinical/translational work, and the development of new methods. Maddox is an Emerging Research Grants scientist generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance in 2013. He has also received a grant from the Faculty Early Career Development Program of the National Science Foundation and the Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) from the National Institutes of Health. The series is moderated by Anil K. Lalwani, M.D., a member of HHF's Board of Directors and the head of HHF's Council of Scientific Trustees, which oversees the ERG program. He is a professor and the vice chair for research in the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery, the associate dean for student research at Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a codirector at the Columbia Cochlear Implant Program. Learn more: https://hearinghealthfoundation.org Bibliography and full transcript: https://hearinghealthfoundation.org/w... #grants #funding #brain #health #hearing #science #research