Irmak Ergin

are you into auditory neuroscience, speech perception and comprehension, music, tonotopy, psychophysics, MEG, EEG, time-resolved signals, data science for neuroscience?

reflecting on 2024, i am proud to share the first three papers from my lab! brief description of each below 🧠 🚀

Our novel measure:

❗Overcomes the constraints of traditional static measurements
❗Can be effectively integrated with neuroimaging techniques, offering a tool for research on dynamic processes during naturalistic listening 🗣️🧠

8/8

Question 3️⃣: How does comprehension decline as speech speeds up?

➡️ It drops categorically, not purely linearly, at 3x speed.
➡️ Shows a limit to how fast we can process information while listening.

7/8

Question 2️⃣ : Why not use traditional post-hoc comprehension measures?

We show that they:
❌ Provide only a snapshot, not real-time changes.
❌ Blur memory and true comprehension.
❌ Are influenced by how the test is designed.

6/8

Question 1️⃣: Does our novel real-time measure successfully capture comprehension?

Yes!
➡️ Allows reporting moment-by-moment comprehension
➡️ Explained by comprehension scores obtained using existing comprehension measures

5/8

Method:

➡️ Participants listened to audiobook segments, sped up to five speech rates (x1, x2, x3, x4, x5)
➡️ Control measures: working memory (digit span) and auditory acuity (digit in noise).
➡️ Post-hoc comprehension measures to validate our novel measure

4/8

Approach:

We developed a slider device that:

➡️Provides millisecond read-out of real-time comprehension
➡️Is scanner compatible
➡️Can be synchronized with behavioral and neural recording software

3/8

Goal:

The ability to capture time-resolved neural activity, and pair that with time-resolved behavior, would open new doors for studying the dynamic neural processes involved in speech comprehension! 🧠🌊

2/8

🚨New preprint🚨 “Measuring Naturalistic Speech Comprehension in Real Time”

➡️ bit.ly/4iESDdV
w/ @kriesjill.bsky.social, Shiven Gupta, & @lauragwilliams.bsky.social

Do you use naturalistic listening paradigms, but wish you could record a continuous behavioral measure of comprehension?
🧵1/8

Approach:

We developed a slider device that:
➡️Provides millisecond read-out of real-time comprehension
➡️Is scanner compatible
➡️Can be synchronized with behavioral and neural recording software

3/8

Goal:

The ability to capture time-resolved neural activity, and pair that with time-resolved behavior, would open new doors for studying the dynamic neural processes involved in speech comprehension! 🧠🌊

2/8

Such wonderful colleagues are certainly something to be grateful for during the holiday season 🫶 @lauragwilliams.bsky.social @ckaicher.bsky.social @kriesjill.bsky.social

✨i'm hiring a lab manager, with a start date of ~September 2025! to express interest, please complete this google form: forms.gle/GLyAbuD779Rz...

looking for someone to join our multi-disciplinary team, using OPM, EEG, iEEG and computational techniques to study speech and language processing! 🧠