SOUND MIND LAB: ROYAL HOLLOWAY
SOUND MIND LAB
New university research lab studying the psychology and neuroscience of speech, language, music, social interaction, and related conditions. Updates to come!
We are based in the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London
UPDATES
DOWN SYNDROME ABSTRACT PRESENTED AT RCPCH CONFERENCE
30 September 2021
An exciting non-invasive method for detecting swallowing problems in infants with Down syndrome was presented at the annual conference of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, by lead author Himali De Silva.
MOVING TO ROYAL HOLLOWAY
3 September 2021
The lab is starting up at Royal Holloway, University of London, in leafy Egham. Stay tuned for more research updates.
THANKS, APS!
2 March, 2021
The Association for Psychological Science has selected me as a 2021 Rising Star. I am very honored by this, and grateful to the APS and to colleagues who organized and supported my nomination.
SOCIETY FOR THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE ANNUAL MEETING
21 October 2020
A poster summarizing recent published work on perceptual weighting strategies for speech and music was presented at the SNL2020 meeting.
PITCH IMPERFECT
26 August 2020
Editors at eLife featured our recent paper:
"Brain imaging reveals how people who struggle to perceive pitch are nevertheless able to understand speech."
PUBLICATIONS
2019
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
VIEW THE ISSUE COVER INSPIRED BY OUR ARTICLE
In this opinion article we discuss how temporal response properties of neurons in auditory cortex may give rise to the distinct functional pathways for processing 'what' a sound is and 'where' and 'how' it was produced.
Jasmin, K., Lima, C.F, Scott, S.K.
2019
Brain
We use a novel fMRI paradigm to examine neural activity during naturalistic, real-time face-to-face conversations and resting state in autism. We also discuss the study in our recent review.
Jasmin, K., Gotts, S., Xu, Y., Liu, S., Riddell, C., Ingeholm, J., Kenworthy, L., Wallace, G., Braun, A.R., Martin, A.
2020
eLife
Individuals with congenital amusia, who have unreliable pitch processing, show decreased functional connectivity between right auditory and left language-related cortex during speech perception, demonstrating a neural basis for compensatory dimensional weighting.
Jasmin, K., Dick, F., Stewart, L., Tierney, A.
Read the eLife Digest feature.
2020
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Perception of speech and music involves integration of pitch, duration and amplitude cues. Individuals tend to prioritize these dimensions using individualized strategies. Here we show that these strategies arise from perceptual abilities.
Jasmin, K., Dick, F., Holt, L., Tierney, A.T.
2016
The Journal of Neuroscience
We show that speaking together (as in group chants) recruits right hemisphere regions outside the classic speech network and blurs the boundary between the self and the other.
Jasmin, K. M., McGettigan, C., Agnew, Z. K., Lavan, N., Josephs, O., Cummins, F., Scott, S. K. The Journal of Neuroscience
2021
Cognition
Here we show that native speakers of Mandarin—a language where pitch is very important—rely heavily on pitch to process other kinds of sounds: They weight pitch highly when processing (second language) English speech, when processing music, and they even struggle to ignore pitch when it's task irrelevant. The results demonstrate a new way that characteristics of one's native language influence perception.
*Jasmin, K., *Sun, H., Tierney, A.
2021
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
Some individuals tend to perceive repeated spoken phrases as song (the "song illusion"). Here we show that song-perceivers have better musical perception skills in general, which suggests that the "song illusion" results from detecting latent musical patterns in speech.
Tierney, A., Patel, A., Jasmin, K., Breen, M.
2021
Pre-Print
Participants categorized instances of a two-word phrase pronounced with typical covariation of fundamental frequency (F0) and duration, and in the context of an artificial ‘accent’ in which F0 and duration covaried atypically. We find that prosodic categories (much like segmental speech categories!) are cued by multiple acoustic dimensions whose perceptual weights dynamically adapt to local regularities in speech input.
*Jasmin, K., *Tierney, A., Holt, L.
2020
Wellcome Open Research
The Multidimensional Battery of Prosody Perception. A new battery for assessing prosody perception across multiple acoustic dimensions and adjustable difficulty levels.
Jasmin, K., Dick, F., Tierney, AT., Wellcome Open Research
2019
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
We review the autism resting state fMRI literature, highlight the potential role of the thalamus and striatum in autism, and emphasize the need for studies that directly compare scanning during multiple cognitive states in addition to the resting-state.
Gotts, S.J., Ramot, M., Jasmin, K., Martin, A. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
2018
Book Chapter
We outline the exciting ways virtual reality can be used to study language, as well as the pitfalls.
Casasanto D. & Jasmin K., chapter in Research Methods in Psycholinguistics and the Neurobiology of Language
2017
Neuropsychologia
We used fMRI to show that whether or not someone is looking at your when they're talking (their gaze direction) affects brain activity in left hemisphere areas that process speech.
McGettigan, C., Jasmin, K., Eisner, F., Agnew, Z., Josephs, O., Calder, A., Jessop, R., Lawson, R., Spielmann, M., Scott, S.K. Neuropsychologia
2017
Cortex
By measuring frequency following responses with EEG, we show that difficulty learning a second language in adulthood may be partly due to auditory perception problems.
Omote, A., Jasmin, K., Tierney, A. Cortex
2017
Neuropsychologia
We find, using 7T fMRI, that reading sentences with social-emotional words activates regions across the 'social brain' network. Reading sentences with inanimate object words activates object/scene recognition regions. We suggest it is important to take semantic content into account when studying reading.
Mellem, M., Jasmin, K., Peng, C., Martin, A. Neuropsychologia
2016
Discourse Processes
Here we test theories of behavioural alignment during dialogue, using virtual reality.
Gijssels, T., Staum Casasanto, L., Jasmin, K., Hagoort, P, & Casasanto, D. Discourse Processes
2012
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
We show that, through associations between left-right space and emotion, the hands we use to type words on a keyboard may slowly shape the emotional associations of those words.
Jasmin K. and Casasanto, D. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
For discussion on the controversies of this effect, click here.
2012
Cognitive Linguistics
English uses front-back spatial metaphors to talk about time. Do English speakers think about this time way? Here we use evidence from hand gestures to show that English speakers use the front-back axis to gesture about time deliberately, but prefer a left-right axis when gesturing spontaneously.
Casasnto, D., and Jasmin, K. Cognitive Linguistics
2010
PLoS ONE
Speakers associate positive messages more strongly with dominant hand gestures and negative messages with non-dominant hand gestures, revealing a hidden link between action and emotion.
Casasanto, D. and Jasmin, K. PLoS ONE
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