What affects your perception of sound? fMRI Study
17 March 2025
This study will involve:
- A hearing test;
- A 30 minute computer task, in which you will be presented a series of ‘trials’. Each trial is a few seconds long, and involves listening to a series of audio tones through headphones, and seeing a visual cue. You will subsequently be presented with a ‘probe’ tone. You will be tasked questions before or after the tone;
- A 60 minute fMRI scanning session, where you will do a similar task.
Requirements
- Hearing ability within ‘normal’ range
- NO presence of tinnitus (persistent sound heard in one or both ears that is not coming from an external sound source or actual sounds being generated inside your body such as turbulent blood flow), that is present in the absence of background sounds that are sufficiently loud to mask it
- Aged 18 or over
- The ability to lie very still for around 60 minutes at a time
- No presence of claustrophobia/fear of enclosed or tight spaces
- No eye or head injuries involving metal (e.g. splinters from working with metal, or shrapnel)
- No implanted medical devices (including pacemakers, cochlear implants, heart valves, aneurysm clips or coronary stents, infusion pumps, or Hickman lines)
- No abnormalities of brain structure (e.g. stroke, tumour), or other neurological disorders (e.g. multiple sclerosis or epilepsy)
- No ongoing use of sedating medications, or certain other nerve-acting medications
- No current mental health condition of sufficient severity to prevent certain activities of everyday life
- No experience of seizures
Keywords
Ethical approval
The specific sound perception study had been reviewed Newcastle University. The study operates according to standard research protocols for the use of MRI in human brain imaging research, which have been approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee.
About the researcher
My name is Kate, I am an auditory researcher whose PhD and subsequent work aims to understand how we perceive sound, and various auditory conditions such as hyperacusis and tinnitus.
