Dr Ediz Sohoglu
Predictive brain mechanisms supporting speech perception
RResearch in my group is focussed on revealing the neural basis of auditory perception. Auditory neuroscience is a fascinating area of research, not least because the two sensory signals that mark us out as a human species – speech and music – are perceived primarily through the auditory system.
Much of my research is motivated by the influential idea of predictive coding. That is, rather than passively processing auditory input, the brain actively generates predictions for what it might hear next. While there is broad consensus that prediction (of some kind) supports perception, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown.
I am interested in supervising PhD projects addressing this issue in the context of speech processing. I have expertise in EEG and our facilities include a 128-channel system with active electrodes. I am also an advocate of modern (multivariate) analysis methods to reveal neural processes that traditional methods cannot detect. This opens new avenues for investigation with possible questions like: How are predictions and sensory input combined in auditory cortex? What is the relationship between prediction and other cognitive processes such as attention? How are predictions updated over time to support longer-term perceptual learning?
You can read more about our work at our lab website. Please get in touch with me by email initially (E.Sohoglu@sussex.ac.uk) to discuss your application.
Key references
- Aitchison L, Lengyel M (2017) With or without you: predictive coding and Bayesian inference in the brain. Curr Opin Neurobiol 46:219–227
- Brodbeck C, Hong LE, Simon JZ (2018) Rapid Transformation from Auditory to Linguistic Representations of Continuous Speech. Curr Biol 28:3976-3983.e5
- Sohoglu E, Chait M (2016) Detecting and representing predictable structure during auditory scene analysis. Elife 5
- Sohoglu E, Davis MH (2016) Perceptual learning of degraded speech by minimizing prediction error. Proc Natl Acad Sci 113:E1747–E1756.