Dear Users This Thursday (4.15 pm in YNiC open plan) there will be 2 internal project proposal presentations: 1) David Watson "The Role of Image Properties in the Representation of Objects in the Brain" The human ventral visual pathway is known to play an important role in the neural representation of visual objects. Current theories suggest that the organization of the ventral stream is based upon categorical principles. For example, there are regions that are selective for faces and scenes. In this fMRI study we will present images drawn from two categories (faces or houses) but which have also been manipulated in terms of image properties by way of low- or high-pass filtering. Using MVPA we can then directly compare and contrast the relative contributions of category and image information to neural responses in face and scene selective regions. 2) Rebecca Millman "Brain function and dynamics during successful and unsuccessful understanding of speech in noise" Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is a natural consequence of ageing. Background noise is a primary complaint of listeners with SNHL. The intensity and complexity of everyday environmental noises, such as background conversations, fluctuates over time. It is thought that young normal-hearing (NH) listeners can cope with a background noise (a masker) that varies over time because they are good at “listening in the dips” of fluctuating noise backgrounds, i.e. whilst the target speech is momentarily unmasked by the noise. Senescent changes in audition and cognition may weaken dip listening through a combination of deficits in peripheral and central auditory processing and higher-level cognitive systems. This project will use neuroimaging to: 1) disentangle the relative contributions of some potential cortical auditory and cognitive deficits to weakened dip listening in SNHL listeners, 2) establish whether there is a cortical neural marker of successful vs. unsuccessful dip listening in the presence of a fluctuating masker and 3) determine whether differences exist in the brain dynamics of NH and SNHL listeners when they are listening to speech in noisy backgrounds. Everyone is welcome to attend and refreshments will be served afterwards. Best wishes Rebecca -- ************************************************************************ Dr. Rebecca E. Millman Science Liaison Officer York Neuroimaging Centre The Biocentre York Science Park Heslington YO10 5DG Tel: +44 (0) 1904 567614 Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356