Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences

• Auditory perception/cognition in normal and hearing-impaired systems
• Neuroimaging (ERPs/EEG)
• Experience-dependent brain plasticity
• Cognitive aging
• Neurobiology of music/language

Gavin M. Bidelman, PhD (CV) (PubMed) (Google Scholar) (Research Gate) is an auditory cognitive neuroscientist who uses neuroimaging and data science tools (EEG/ERPs, psychophysics, computational modeling, machine learning) to investigate foundational properties of auditory perception and cognition. The work includes elements of both basic research and clinically motivated inquiry. Lab studies proceed on three main fronts: (1) understanding the neurocomputations involved in the perception-cognition and novel learning of speech and musical sounds—with current emphasis on auditory categorization; (2) a neuroethological approach characterizing the upper bounds of brain plasticity via study of listeners with extraordinary auditory expertise (e.g., musicians, bilinguals); and translational work (3) examining changes in neurophysiological coding across the lifespan in both normal and clinical populations (hard of hearing, mild cognitive impairment). The lab is funded by the NIH/NIDCD. 

Rizzi, R. & Bidelman, G. M. (2023). Duplex perception reveals brainstem auditory representations are modulated by listeners’ ongoing percept for speech. Cerebral Cortex, 33(18), 10076-10086.

Price, C. N. & Bidelman, G. M. (2022). Musical experience partially counteracts temporal speech processing deficits in putative mild cognitive impairment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1-9.

Price, C. N. & Bidelman, G. M. (2021). Attention reinforces human corticofugal system to aid speech perception in noise. NeuroImage, 235 (118014), 1-9.

Bidelman, G. M., Price, C. N., Shen, D., Arnott, S., & Alain, C. (2019). Afferent-efferent connectivity between auditory brainstem and cortex accounts for poorer speech-in-noise comprehension in older adults. Hearing Research, 382, 1-12.

Mankel, K., & Bidelman, G. M. (2018). Inherent auditory skills rather than formal music training shape the neural encoding of speech. PNAS, 115(51), 13129-13134.

Bidelman, G. M. (2018). Subcortical sources dominate the neuroelectric auditory frequency-following response to speech. NeuroImage, 175, 56-69.

Bidelman, G. M. & Alain, C. (2015). Musical training orchestrates coordinated neuroplasticity in auditory brainstem and cortex to counteract age-related declines in categorical speech perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(3) 1240 –1249.