Auditory learning
PhD in Experimental Psychology available at the Institute's Clinical Section in Nottingham
with Dr Sygal Amitay and Prof David Moore
sygal@ihr.mrc.ac.uk, davem@ihr.mrc.ac.uk
The Auditory Learning Group at the IHR Nottingham Clinical Section is a dynamic research team looking for an enthusiastic and imaginative PhD candidate to conduct research into auditory learning in adults and children.
Auditory training results in dramatic improvement in performance on the trained task as well as on other, more general, but not obviously related tasks. This generalization effect is of great importance in the application of training. Applications exploited or planned include language and auditory problems in children, rehabilitation following fitting of hearing aids and cochlear implants, and mainstream education (phonics, second language learning). We are interested in the rules and mechanisms that govern the transfer and generalisation of training to untrained stimuli or tasks. Our studies typically involve comparison of different training regimes, which may consist of one or more auditory tasks (e.g., pitch discrimination), and different strategies for reinforcement and feedback. We use adaptive behavioural measures both for testing task performance and for training on auditory tasks. Both the testing and training routines are implemented as computer games and may be conducted in the clinic, at the workplace (e.g., in schools), at home or over the internet. Depending on your background, there is the possibility to expand this project into structural or functional neuroimaging (EEG or MRI).
Applications are welcome from graduates with a first- or upper second-class degree in a relevant discipline, such as psychology or cognitive neuroscience.
Amitay S, et al. (2010). Motivation and intelligence drive auditory perceptual learning. PLoS ONE 5, e9816.
Moore DR, et al. (2009). Use of auditory learning to manage listening problems in children. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B. Biological Science 364, 409-420.