Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (Chait lab)

In the Chait lab ("Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience lab"), based at the UCL Ear Institute, we research how listeners use sounds in order to learn about, and interact with, their surroundings.

Understanding listening effort in noisy environments

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Our work

By studying how brain responses unfold in time, we explore how representations that are useful for behaviour arise from sensory input.

Our work is based on behavioural methods (psychophysics), eye tracking and functional brain imaging (MEG, EEG and fMRI). We conduct our MEG and fMRI scanning at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and we are also affiliated with the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Examples of the questions we address in our experiments are:

How do we detect patterns in rapidly unfolding sound sequences?
How do listeners detect the appearance or disappearance of new auditory objects (sound sources) in the environment?
What makes certain events ‘pop-out’ and grab listeners’ attention even when it is focused elsewhere, while the detection of other events requires directed listening?
How are listeners able to focus attention on one sound in a mixture?

Find out more about our research.