The deadline has been extended to the 10th June. There are still a couple of spots available. Apply before it's sold out! EEG/fNIRS/hyperscanning/TRFs/Speech/Music/Ping pong!

These findings suggest that training which taxes attention, memory, and production but is not perceptually taxing may be a way to boost neural encoding of sound and auditory pattern detection in individuals with poor auditory skills. 🧵6/6

However, voice actors didn’t show advantage in fine sound discrimination, which was instead linked to musical experience, suggesting that low-level auditory processing can only be enhanced by demanding perceptual training. 🧵5/6

We found that the consistency of neural sound encoding, prosody perception, and musical phrase perception are enhanced in voice actors, suggesting that a range of neural and behavioural auditory processing enhancements can result from training which lacks fine perceptual precision. 🧵4/6

We compared voice actors and a group of non-actors matched in musical training and assessed their neural encoding of pitch 🧠 , as well as their prosody 💬, music 🎵, and sound perception 🔉. 🧵3/6

Professional 🎙️voice actors 🎙️ exaggerate prosodic patterns to convey emotion, character or accents, drawing upon auditory attention, memory, and accurate sound production, but not fine perceptual precision. 🧵2/6

Are high perceptual precision demands always necessary for training to drive auditory neural plasticity? 🧠 🔊🎙️ Find out more in this cool study with voice actors doi.org/10.1016/j.co... by @mkachlicka.bsky.social & @adamtierney.bsky.social @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social #auditory #neuroscience 🧵1/6

This supports the idea that the brain doesn’t solely map physical locations but also structures abstract knowledge in a similar way. Our findings take this a step further, revealing that spatial neural resources are not just engaged but necessary for this kind of mental organization. 🧵4/4

A second experiment showed that when spatial thinking was disrupted, people struggled to mentally navigate sound, indicating that the brain’s navigation system isn’t just involved—it’s essential for this process. 🧵3/4

When participants imagined changes in sound, like a pitch rising or falling, or a note getting longer or shorter, their brains showed grid-like activity in the entorhinal cortex, the same neural pattern used for physical navigation. 🧵2/4

Our brains have an internal GPS that guides us through physical space. But does it do more than that? A recent preprint from the lab shows that the brain’s navigation system also maps sound 🧠 🌎 🔉 Read more here: doi.org/10.1101/2025... #auditory #neuroscience @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social 🧵1/4

⏰CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS⏰ We're looking for London-based #participants who would like to take part in an fMRI study and gain insight into how our brains process second language speech 🧠🧠🧠 #auditory #neuroscience @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social Contact @mkachlicka.bsky.social for details. Please share!

⏰CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS⏰ We're looking for London-based #participants who would like to take part in an fMRI study and gain insight into how our brains process second language speech 🧠🧠🧠 #auditory #neuroscience @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social Contact @mkachlicka.bsky.social for details. Please share!

New preprint by @mkachlicka.bsky.social et al.! Perceptual strategies set by one's first language can make learning a second language difficult. Can short-term training change participants' strategies, potentially facilitating second language learning? The answer is sort of! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Our "Many Voices" 75-author collaboration led by Yuto Ozaki finding global regularities in music-speech relationships is now out on the cover of Science Advances: science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Full video of 18 coauthors singing/speaking in our own languages at youtu.be/a4eNNrdcfDM

Hi new followers! Here are a few recent papers from the lab:

@mkachlicka.bsky.social shows that Illusory transformation of speech into song is unaffected by language background, suggesting cross-cultural similarity in cues used to distinguish speech and music: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Do you want to know more about our research? Check our website: sites.google.com/view/audione... and follow us here! 🦋 #research #auditory #neuroscience