Auditory cognition ('the mind's ear') is the process of making sense of the sound world. We study normal processes including perception, and also memory and emotional responses to that world. We study how auditory cognition goes wrong in brain disorders. This work is relevant to common conditions disorders including hearing loss with ageing, links between hearing loss and dementia, and abnormal listening experiences like tinnitus and musical hallucinations. 

Our work on normal auditory cognition is carried out using listening tests and EEG (at Newcastle University), functional imaging using fMRI (at the department of Imaging Neuroscience, UCL) and invasive recordings from the brain of patient volunteers who have these inserted to demonstrate where their epilepsy comes from (at the Human Brain Research Laboratory at the University of Iowa). In terms of electrode recordings, we regularly record signals from groups of neurons (local field potentials) and in the last five years we have been able to record from single neurons to allow understanding at this fundamental level.

Current areas of focus are on mechanisms for auditory figure-ground segregation and on hippocampal mechanisms for auditory cognition.

1. Our work on figure-ground analysis is relevant to deficits in speech-in-noise perception. These are ubiquitous in common hearing loss caused by damage to the hearing mechanism in the ear, but require an explanation based on both ear and brain processes. We are developing fundamental listening tests of figure ground analysis (that do not require speech) and brain measures (especially EEG). Both types of measure are being assessed as ways of predicting real world listening success in patients with hearing aids and cochlear implants.
2. Our work normal listeners has identified hippocampal mechanisms for auditory cognition. The hippocampus is not traditionally regarded as a basis for hearing. Models have implicated the hippocampus in episodic memory and spatial navigation, in particular, but recent studies by many groups have implicated it in a much broader set of roles. In terms of normal auditory processing, we are carrying out brain imaging work and human electrodes recordings to assess the role of the hippocampus in the perceptions and memory of auditory scenes. In terms of disorders, the hippocampus is affected early in prototypical Alzheimer’s disease: we are interested in the idea that hearing mechanism here are relevant to the established link between hearing loss and dementia.