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Ageing Attention Auditory Neuroscience Auditory Perception Computational Modelling fMRI Job Offers Neural Oscillations Speech perception

We are hir­ing: two new PhD train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties start­ing ear­ly next year!

© az1172/ Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Our two senior researchers, Sarah Tune and Malte Wöst­mann, are hap­py to each announce the open­ing of a three-year PhD posi­tion in the Obleser lab. The posi­tions are part of two recent­ly fund­ed DFG grants, and will fea­ture real­ly excit­ing com­bi­na­tions of behav­iour mod­el­ling and neur­al dynamics!

Sarah’s project will look into how per­cep­tu­al infer­ence changes with age, using speech per­cep­tion as a mod­el sys­tem. It will bring togeth­er behav­iour­al speech per­cep­tion exper­i­ments and func­tion­al neu­roimag­ing, and apply com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el­ling to link between the two.

For full details, see the offi­cial job ad.

Malte’s project will focus on audi­to­ry atten­tion and its neur­al bases. It will com­bine behav­iour­al and elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) data in younger and old­er adults to inves­ti­gate the neu­ro-cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms under­ly­ing cap­ture of atten­tion and sup­pres­sion of distraction.

For full details, see the offi­cial job ad.

The appli­ca­tion dead­line (as sin­gle PDF to the email address named in the ad!) is Nov 19, 2023!

Please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact Sarah or Malte if you have any infor­mal ques­tions about PhD posi­tions and projects. Sarah will also be at APAN and SfN soon, if you feel like chat­ting with her about the position.

We are look­ing for­ward to many inter­est­ing applications!

 

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Ageing Attention Auditory Neuroscience Auditory Perception Auditory Speech Processing EEG / MEG Executive Functions fMRI Grants Hearing Loss Linguistics Neural dynamics Perception Semantics Uncategorized

A grant dou­ble to celebrate

We are hon­oured and delight­ed that the Deutsche Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft has deemed two of our recent appli­ca­tions wor­thy of fund­ing: The two senior researchers in the  lab, Sarah Tune and Malte Wöst­mann, have both been award­ed three-year grant fund­ing for their new projects. Congratulations!

In her 3‑year, 360‑K€ project “How per­cep­tu­al infer­ence changes with age: Behav­iour­al and brain dynam­ics of speech per­cep­tion”, Sarah Tune will explore the role of per­cep­tu­al pri­ors in speech per­cep­tion in the age­ing lis­ten­er. She will main­ly use neur­al and per­cep­tu­al mod­el­ling and func­tion­al neuroimaging.

In his 3‑year, 270‑K€ project “Inves­ti­ga­tion of cap­ture and sup­pres­sion in audi­to­ry atten­tion”, Malte Wöst­mann will con­tin­ue and refine his suc­cess­ful research endeav­our into dis­so­ci­at­ing the role of sup­pres­sive mech­a­nisms in the lis­ten­ing mind and brain, main­ly using EEG and behav­iour­al modelling.

Both of them will soon adver­tise posts for PhD can­di­dates to join us, accord­ing­ly, and to work on these excit­ing projects with Sarah and Malte and the rest of the Oble­ser­lab team

 

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Editorial Notes Events Hearing Loss Probandensuche Uncategorized

The “Hörhanse” [hanseat­ic hear­ing] has begun!

We are delight­ed to be a found­ing mem­ber of the Hörhanse, a Lübeck con­sor­tium of all play­ers research­ing, teach­ing, sell­ing, or treat­ing hear­ing.
Hear­ing acoustics is a focal point at the Hanse Inno­va­tion Cam­pus Lübeck. Unique in Ger­many is the large num­ber of insti­tu­tions that work togeth­er with renowned play­ers to advance the top­ic of hear­ing around the cam­pus: Hear­ing, acoustics and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are advanced in their most diverse facets in research projects, study pro­grammes, the nation­wide train­ing of hear­ing care pro­fes­sion­als, in the clin­i­cal area and through inter­dis­ci­pli­nary coop­er­a­tion.

The found­ing project part­ners of HörHanse are the three uni­ver­si­ties in Lübeck: our host insti­tu­tion Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck, plus the Lübeck Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Musikhochschule Lübeck (MHL), as well as the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Schleswig-Hol­stein, the Ger­man Hear­ing Aid Insti­tute (DHI), the Fed­er­al Guild of Hear­ing Aid Acousti­cians (biha), the Acad­e­my of Hear­ing Aid Acoustics, the State Voca­tion­al School for Hear­ing Aid Acousti­cians, and the com­pa­ny hear con­cept.

 

See the Ger­man press release here.

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Guest-edit­ed spe­cial issue in Atten­tion, Per­cep­tion & Psy­chophysics (AP&P)

AC’s Malte Wöst­mann has guest-edit­ed a spe­cial issue on tar­get enhance­ment and dis­trac­tor sup­pres­sion in selec­tive atten­tion togeth­er with Vio­la S. Störmer, MaryAnn P. Noo­nan, and Dirk van Moorse­laar. The col­lec­tion of arti­cles advances our under­stand­ing of the enhance­ment of tar­get stim­uli and the sup­pres­sion of dis­trac­tion on var­i­ous lev­els of sen­so­ry and high­er-order cog­ni­tive pro­cess­ing. It com­bines evi­dence from psy­chophysics, mod­el­ling of behav­ioral respons­es, and neu­roimag­ing exper­i­ments. In sum, the spe­cial issue sup­ports the notion that a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of selec­tive atten­tion in psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science requires the study of enhance­ment and sup­pres­sion, as well as their coor­di­nat­ed interplay.

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Ageing Auditory Neuroscience Editorial Notes Hearing Loss Psychology

New research fund­ing: joint project with WSA

I am hap­py and hon­oured that one of the lead­ing hear­ing aid devel­op­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers, Widex Sivan­tos Audi­ol­o­gy (WSA), has agreed with Uni­ver­si­ty of Lübeck to fund 3 more excit­ing years of research at the Obleser lab! We will be joint­ly look­ing at the intri­ca­cies of how age­ing lis­ten­ers nav­i­gate a noisy world and its com­mu­ni­ca­tion challenges.

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Auditory Cortex Auditory Neuroscience Auditory Perception Brain stimulation Clinical relevance Neural Oscillations Papers Psychiatry Psychology Voice

New Review paper on Cir­ca­di­an Rhythms in Audi­to­ry Hal­lu­ci­na­tions and Psy­chosis to come out in “Acta Physiologica”

As part of our increased efforts to under­stand the impact of chrono­bi­ol­o­gy in sen­sa­tion and per­cep­tion, a new review arti­cle by senior researcher Hong-Viet Ngo in the lab and Jonas Obleser, togeth­er with psy­chi­a­trist Christi­na Andreou and chrononeu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gist Hen­rik Oster is forthcoming!

The paper sum­maris­es our (sketchy) knowl­edge on how cir­ca­di­an rhythms impact audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tion propen­si­ty, and how key neur­al sig­na­tures E:I (dys-)balance and dopamin­er­gic sig­nalling joint­ly might con­tribute to hal­lu­ci­na­tions as a key symp­tom in  psy­chosis. The paper has been accept­ed in the clas­sic jour­nal Acta Phys­i­o­log­i­ca. A preprint ver­sion is avail­able here.

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Editorial Notes Events Job Offers

New fund­ing: The Hoer­hanse is materialising

Details are to fol­low, but we and our many col­leagues in the Hoer­hanse Lübeck [hanseat­ic hear­ing] are very pleased to have secured sub­stan­tial funds to kick-start our com­mu­ni­ca­tion and cross-fer­til­iza­tion plat­form for hear­ing research, train­ing, and treat­ment here in Lübeck. The project will be host­ed at our part­ner, Hanse Inno­va­tion Cam­pus (HIC) Lübeck. HIC will also be hir­ing soon for this poject. Stay tuned for all the details!

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Job Offers Uncategorized

Job alert in the Obleser lab! We are look­ing for a data sci­en­tist / neuro/ com­put­er scientist

Check out this new job ad (dead­line Dec 16), if you are inter­est­ed in work­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of high-dimen­sion­al neur­al data (and how to ensure its anonymi­ty) in this excit­ing new project with many col­leagues from Uni Lübeck and com­pa­nies around us.

This post is espe­cial­ly suit­ed for tal­ents look­ing for slight changes in their career tra­jec­to­ry (psy­chol­o­gists going data sci­ence, IT spe­cial­ists going neuro/health, or such).

Hold­ing already a doc­tor­al degree is nice but not a strict must-have at this stage.

Hit me up with any ques­tions you might have. — Jonas