Jennifer M. Groh

Research Interests

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• Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs) and their role in visual-auditory processing
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• Neural fluctuations and their role in permitting the brain to do more than one thing at a time (Neural time division multiplexing)
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Bio

Research in my laboratory concerns how sensory and motor systems work together, and how neural representations play a combined role in sensorimotor and cognitive processing (embodied cognition). nnMost of our work concerns the interactions between vision and hearing. We frequently perceive visual and auditory stimuli as being bound together if they seem likely to have arisen from a common source. That's why we tend not to notice that the speakers on TV sets or in movie theatres are located beside, and not behind, the screen. Research in my laboratory is devoted to investigating the question of how the brain coordinates the information arising from the ears and eyes. Our findings challenge the historical view of the brain's sensory processing as being automatic, autonomous, and immune from outside influence. We have recently established that neurons in the auditory pathway (inferior colliculus, auditory cortex) alter their responses to sound depending on where the eyes are pointing. This finding suggests that the different sensory pathways meddle in one another's supposedly private affairs, making their respective influences felt even at very early stages of processing. The process of bringing the signals from two different sensory pathways into a common frame of reference begins at a surprisingly early point along the primary sensory pathways.

Education

• M.S. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1989
• Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 1993

Positions

• Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
• Professor of Neurobiology
• Professor of Biomedical Engineering
• Professor of Computer Science
• Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
• Member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

• Thomas Langford Lecture. Duke University. 2012
• Fellowship. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 2009
• Sloan Research Fellowship-Neuroscience. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 1998

Courses Taught

• PSY 755: Research Practicum
• PSY 378L: Perception and the Brain
• PSY 308L: Perception and the Brain
• NEUROSCI 755: Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Neuroscience (IPCN) Independent Research Rotation
• NEUROSCI 494: Research Independent Study 2
• NEUROSCI 493: Research Independent Study 1
• NEUROSCI 378L: Perception and the Brain
• NEUROBIO 793: Research in Neurobiology