Enhancing audiovisual perception for speech rehabilitation

调查视听言语感知的个体差异将是我学术生涯的理想下一步，将视觉，语言处理和MEG中的多变量方法的关键兴趣与临床翻译的潜力相结合。在我学习英语、心理学和神经科学的过程中，以及在视觉感知、心理物理学和心理语言学方面的研究中，我对我们说话和倾听能力的神经基础产生了持续的兴趣，并打算攻读博士学位。使用和处理各种多模态形式的语言的能力对于参与日常生活至关重要，这种能力的受损（例如由于听力损失）可能会显着降低生活质量。因此，我对一个利用语言系统基础认知神经科学研究成果的博士项目特别感兴趣。我的研究经历使我对研究感觉信号如何在大脑中转化为复杂而有意义的表征的神经生物学基础产生了兴趣。在我的本科和我的prospectiveMPhil项目中，我对神经活动时间测量的多变量分析特别感兴趣，解开处理的不同阶段。总之，研究视觉在语言处理过程中的贡献，以最生态的形式对临床效益的贡献，对我来说是一个完美的匹配。

Investigating individual differences in audiovisual speech perception would be the ideal next step for my academiccareer, combining key interests in vision, language processing and multivariate methods in MEG with the potential forclinical translation. Throughout my studies in English, Psychology and Neuroscience, as well as research in visualperception, psychophysics and psycholinguistics, I have gained a sustained interest in the neurological underpinnings ofour ability to speak and listen, and intend to study these in a PhD. The capacity to use and process language in itsvarious multimodal formats is essential for participation in everyday life, and impairment in this capacity e.g. due tohearing loss may significantly lower quality of life. A PhD project leveraging findings from basic cognitive neuroscienceresearch on the language system towards translational benefits is therefore of particular interest to me. My researchexperiences have given me an appreciation for studying the neurobiological underpinnings of how sensory signals aretranslated into complex, meaningful representations in the brain. Throughout my undergraduate and my prospectiveMPhil project, I have become particularly interested in multivariate analysis for temporal measures of neural activity,disentangling distinct stages of processing. In sum, investigating the contribution of vision during language processing inits most ecological form towards clinical benefits is a perfect match for me.