Lauren Petley - Hearing and Attention Lab

Studying the Interplay Between Hearing and Cognition

     The limited capacity of conscious awareness is obvious in everyday life. We struggle to hear a conversation at a party. We struggle to study when people are talking around us. Overcoming these challenges requires complementary neural systems that allow the brain to both monitor events occurring outside of our awareness and focus on effortful tasks.
     At the Hearing and Attention Lab, we use an auditory cognitive neuroscience approach to study these systems, and their dynamic interactions. Automatic processing is often studied using an EEG response called the mismatch negativity (MMN) which reflects the brain’s ability to detect changes in an auditory sequence. Focused attention, on the other hand, is typically studied using cognitive tasks, and EEG responses like the P300, among others.
     Our perspective on auditory perception is important for understanding clinical disorders that arise at the intersection of hearing and attention. We collaborate extensively with researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to study such developmental challenges, including listening difficulties (often associated with the clinical entity known as Auditory Processing Disorder), and linguistic development in children who are born prematurely.

Our Team

Lauren (Sculthorpe) Petley, Ph.D. established the Hearing and Attention Lab in 2019. She is an auditory cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Clarkson University. After completing her doctorate at the University of Ottawa, she spent nearly a decade working in industry- and industry-partnered settings developing novel neurotechnologies and diagnostics. At Clarkson, her work spans both cognitive theory and its applications. She also serves as the Secretary of the Board for the Auditory Perception and Cognition Society.