Elyse S. Sussman
<p>My research is in the field of Cognitive Neuroscience and is focused on understanding the neural bases of auditory information processing in adults and children. Our laboratory's research uses a combination of non-invasive recordings of human brain activity in conjunction with behavioral performance measures, to specify the processes and brain structures that contribute to the organization, storage, and perception of a coherent sound environment. The lab investigates the effects of typical and atypical neural development on auditory perception, memory, and attention across the lifespan.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">Dr. Sussman studies auditory scene perception, a crucial hearing skill that allows us to follow a single voice in a crowded room. Her research focuses on understanding how auditory cognition changes across the lifespan from infancy to old age and how it breaks down in individuals with developmental disorders (such as autism, language impairments and ADHD) and hearing impairments. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">Dr. Sussman explores the relationship between automatic and controlled brain processes, and she was one of the first to show that auditory scene perception occurs even in the absence of attention. This work has important implications for improving medical technologies such as hearing aids and for developing prosthetic devices and computer models of speech perception.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">Dr. Sussman serves as research editor of<span> </span><em>Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience</em><span> </span>and as a member of the NIH’s Cognitive Neuroscience Study Section. In 2000, she received the James A. Shannon Director's Award of the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.</span></p>
<p>Recent Publications.</p>
<p>Brace, B., Lee, W., Cole, P., & Sussman, E. (2019). Childhood leukemia survivors exhibit deficiencies in sensory and cognitive processes, as reflected by event-related brain potentials after completion of curative chemotherapy: A preliminary investigation. <em>Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology</em>, 41(8):814-831. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2019.1623865. </p>
<p>Symonds, R., Zhou, J., Cole, S., Brace, K., & Sussman, E. (2020). Cognitive resources are distributed amongst the entire auditory landscape in auditory scene analysis. Psychophysiology, 57(2): e13487, doi: 10.1111/psyp.13487. PMID: 31578762; PMCID: </p>
<p>Moskowitz, H.S., Lee, W., & Sussman, E.S. (2020). Response advantage for identification of speech sounds. <em>Frontiers in Psychology</em>, 11:1155. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01155. PMID: 32655436</p>
<p>Pavao, R., Sussman, E. Fischer, B. & Pena, J.L. (2020), Natural ITD statistics predict human auditory spatial perception. <em>Elife</em>, https://elifesciences.org/articles/51927</p>
<p>Fishman, Y., Lee, W., & Sussman, E. (2021). Learning to predict: Neuronal signatures of auditory expectancy in human event-related potentials. <em>Neuroimage</em>, 225, 15, 117472 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117472</p>
<p>Solomon, S.S., Tang, H., Sussman, E.S., & Kohn, A. (2021). Limited evidence for sensory prediction error responses in visual cortex of macaques and humans. <em>Cereb Cortex</em>. 31(6):3136-3152. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhab014. PMID: 33683317</p>
<p>Brace, K.M. & Sussman, E.S. (2021). The role of attention and explicit knowledge in perceiving bistable auditory input. <em>Psychophysiology</em>, https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13875</p>
<p>Brace, K.M. & Sussman, E.S. (2021). The brain tracks multiple predictions about the auditory scene. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5:747769. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.747769</p>
<p>Bonuck, K., Shafer, V., Battino, R., Valicenti-McDermott, R.M., Sussman, E. & McGrath, K. (2021). Language Disorders Research on Bilingualism, School-Age, and Related Difficulties: A Scoping Review of Descriptive Studies. Academic Pediatrics, 22(4), 518-525. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2021.12.002</p>