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A guest blog post by Nina Suess In our new preprint, we tried to find out what speech-related information can be extracted from silent lip movements by the human brain and how this information is differentially processed in healthy ageing. It has already been shown that the visual cortex is able to track the unheard speech envelope that is accompanying the lip movements. But the … Continue reading “New preprint: The visual cortex extracts spectral fine details from silent speech”

Our* commentary on Köster et al. (2019) Psych Sci is now available here. Find a TL;DR below. Entraining rhythms of the brain to study the neurodevelopment of perception and cognition is a fascinating idea. In principle, entrainment endows the experimenter with increased control over the timing of fundamental neural processes. Yet, its appeal has also created a flurry of neuroscientific research that may apply this … Continue reading “Out now: Commentary on infant entrainment study”

In our new article, we tried to find new answers to an old question: Are word meanings “the same” in the brain, whether we hear a spoken word or lip-read the same word by watching a speaker’s face? After more than 4 years of work (I tested the first participant in August 2016), this study now found a great home in the journal eLife. We … Continue reading “Out now: The brain separates auditory and visual “meanings” of words”

Special issue at the European Journal of Neuroscience now open for submissions. Guest Editors Christian Keitel (University of Stirling, UK), Manuela Ruzzoli (University of Glasgow, UK), Chris Benwell (University of Dundee, UK), Niko Busch (University of Muenster, Germany), and Laura Dugué (Paris Descartes University, France). Call for Papers: November 2019 Extended Submission Deadline: December 21, 2020 Online Publication within One Week of Acceptance Estimated Date … Continue reading “Call for Papers – Rhythms in cognition: re-visiting the evidence”

In our new preprint, we tried to figure out whether word meanings are “the same” in the brain, whether we hear a spoken word or lip read the same word by watching a speaker’s face. To answer this, participants did the same task in two conditions: auditory and visual. In the auditory condition, they heard a speaker say a sentence. In the visual condition, they … Continue reading “New preprint: The brain separates auditory and visual “meanings” of words”

In our recent study we asked how waves that the brain produces by itself – alpha rhythms – relate to waves triggered by viewing a flickering screen. Both can be of similar frequency (~10Hz, or ten cycles per second) and are easily recorded from the scalp with electrodes (EEG). To recap, we did not find much evidence for a strong link between the two types … Continue reading “Flicker-driven brain waves and alpha rhythms – revisited”

We will be presenting our works at Poster Session F, Tue (26 Mar), 8-10am, at the 2019 CNS meeting in San Francisco. Go see Anne for Auditory and visual speech perception is predicted by distinct cortical encoding networks [F60]: And stop by at [F130] for Christian’s Spontaneous fluctuations of pupil size and brain rhythms co-vary at rest: … or just click on the posters to … Continue reading “CNS 2019 – Posters”

Researchers usually assume alpha brain waves to behave relatively similarly over time. In a new study, led by Chris Benwell and just accepted for publication in NeuroImage, we find that this is not necessarily true for the 1-2 hrs that a typical EEG experiment lasts. In a re-analysis of data from two previous EEG experiments we saw that alpha underlies two major trends – alpha … Continue reading “Alpha rhythms: Some slow down, some grow stronger”

[1 Jan 2019] Anne has taken up a position of Lecturer of Psychology at the University of Dundee. With the beginning of January 2019 she joins the staff at the Psychology Division at the school of Social Sciences. There, she will continue her research into auditory cognition, with a focus on language and speech perception mainly using EEG-based neuroimaging and, this term, teach on individual … Continue reading “Anne to join University of Dundee Psychology”

[17 Feb 2019] Our manuscript Stimulus-driven brain rhythms within the alpha band: The attentional-modulation conundrum has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience. We show that stimulus-driven and intrinsic brain rhythms in the ~10 Hz range (alpha) can be functionally segregated. Briefly put, while one goes up the other one goes down. In an experiment, we recorded the brain waves of our … Continue reading “Flicker-driven brain waves and alpha rhythms”