Basic & Applied NeuroDynamics Laboratory: Where brain research meets real-life applications
Exciting news, BANDlab’s Katerina Kandylaki is giving a lecture in the online lecture series “Understanding Language” organised by Studium Generale.
Her talk will be titled ‘Rhythm in Speech and Language Processing’
More information about the online lecture series in November and registration here. The lecture will also be recorded and available online after the event.
New paper from our lab in collaboation with Ana P. Pinheiro, Michael Schwartze and Sonja A. Kotz!
Why do some people hear voices? In the review, the authors propose that auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are associated to changes in the cerebellar cicuitry in the forward model. In short, the reviewed evidence suggests that erratic predictions of sound and voice production are linked to impaired cerebellar function.
Curious? Read the full paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763420305224
We are still happily zooming and enjoying the virtual lab meetings!
Since the beginning of the pandemic we are working from home. After the initial lock down, testing sites are slowly starting to open up, while following strict safety protocols.
Now, meetings are held online and going to the office is only possible when necessary. Most likely, a lot of labs around the world experience something similar right now. What are your approaches to stay focused and to keep contact with your team? Some of us started to do virtual working sessions (coffee breaks included).
Stay safe and healthy everyone!
![Screenshot_2020-06-19 Distinct cortical rhythms in speech and language processing and some more a commentary on Meyer, Sun,[...]](https://bandlaboratory.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/screenshot_2020-06-19-distinct-cortical-rhythms-in-speech-and-language-processing-and-some-more-a-commentary-on-meyer-sun....png)
We are excited to share our new publication “ERP mismatch response to phonological and temporal regularities in speech”, fresh off the press at Scientific Reports! In collaboration with the M-BIC Brain and Language Lab, our PhD candidate Alex Emmendorfer uses a passive oddball paradigm to investigate how our brain makes use of regularities in the phonological and temporal structure of speech.
Asking questions to the brain (Vragen stellen aan het brein): a 60min interactive workshop about the brain and rhythm. In February and May 2019 Katerina Kandylaki of BAND-Lab brought this workshop to 5th year class pupils at two local schools (Porta Mosana, Maastricht and Sophianum, Gulpen). She explained the basic concepts of imaging and stimulation methods (EEG, s/fMRI, TMS), the function of rhythm in language, and the basic idea of her current project NERHYMUS. This project investigates speech rhythm perception in musicians and non-musicians and is funded by the European Commission.
We had an EEG demonstration and a rhythm activity which were very well received by the teenagers. Even the “too-cool-for-school” ones were asking questions and joined the activities by the end of the workshop. A very rewarding and enjoyable experience for the researchers!
Many thanks to Kobus Lampe, master student in Neuropsychology for his support on the workshop. We also want to thank Isabelle Grosch (Marketing and Communications of the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience), and Ellen Krijnen and Tanja Peters (Marketing and Communications of Maastricht University) for connecting researchers and schools and promoting interactions.
A new meta-analysis by JF Johnson, M Belyk, M Schwartze, and S Kotz show that manipulating feedback in general is not sufficient to probe cerebellar activity in fMRI. We discuss here the problems, and what may be the most reliable way to investigate within this methodology.
See the full article here
We are pleased to announce the publication of our article: The roles of musical expertise and sensory feedback in beat keeping and joint action
The full article can be viewed here.
Abstract
Auditory feedback of actions provides additional information about the timing of one’s own actions and those of others. However, little is known about how musicians and nonmusicians integrate auditory feedback from multiple sources to regulate their own timing or to (intentionally or unintentionally) coordinate with a partner. We examined how musical expertise modulates the role of auditory feedback in a two-person synchronization–continuation tapping task. Pairs of individuals were instructed to tap at a rate indicated by an initial metronome cue in all four auditory feedback conditions: no feedback, self-feedback (cannot hear their partner), other feedback (cannot hear themselves), or full feedback (both self and other). Participants within a pair were either both musically trained (musicians), both untrained (nonmusicians), or one musically trained and one untrained (mixed). Results demonstrated that all three pair types spontaneously synchronized with their partner when receiving other or full feedback. Moreover, all pair types were better at maintaining the metronome rate with self-feedback than with no feedback. Musician pairs better maintained the metronome rate when receiving other feedback than when receiving no feedback; in contrast, nonmusician pairs were worse when receiving other or full feedback compared to no feedback. Both members of mixed pairs maintained the metronome rate better in the other and full feedback conditions than in the no feedback condition, similar to musician pairs. Overall, nonmusicians benefited from musicians’ expertise without negatively influencing musicians’ ability to maintain the tapping rate. One implication is that nonmusicians may improve their beat-keeping abilities by performing tasks with musically skilled individuals.
This summer, our lab member Alex Emmendorfer presented the results of her first PhD experiment at the 2018 meeting of the Society of the Neurobiology of Language in Québec City, Canada.
In this EEG study, Alex used Dutch pseudowords varying in their phonotactic probability and syllable stress pattern to examine the processing of formal and temporal prediction in speech perception in an oddball paradigm. She showed that both formal and temporal predictability modulate processing of speech stimuli. High predictability in both formal and temporal domains facilitates processing compared to low predictability, indexed by greater MMN amplitudes for first syllable stress and shorter latencies for high phonotactic probability.
Additionally, we are excited to announce that Lab Director Sonja Kotz will be joining the society’s board as Chair-Elect for the upcoming year! Congratulations Sonja!
