Research Spotlight

New Methods in Auditory Neuroscience

Anastasia Sares — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:25:58 +0000

Every scientist needs tools to make their discoveries. Better telescopes let us see more galaxies, mass spectrometers reveal the chemical makeup of substances, particle colliders let us observe matter in extreme situations, and gene-editing allows us to see what happens when an organism lacks a specific gene. What, then, are the methods that scientists use to study subjects like hearing, music, and speech? What new tools are being created or refined? We interviewed CRBLM members who have recently created or used new methods.

Singing Birds And Signing Apes: What Animals Can Tell Us About Hearing, Speech, And Music

Anastasia Sares — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:00:53 +0000

Often, research about auditory processing here at the CRBLM focuses on humans. But for this article, we will highlight research about other animals and how they compare!

Speech and music are themselves collections of many auditory and motor abilities. To better understand the evolution of speech and music, we need to compare a number of species, and see which ones have these separate abilities, and which ones don’t. This is called the comparative approach.

Turning Down The Noise: Recent Research On How Our Brains Filter Auditory Information

Anastasia Sares — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:05:35 +0000

As the holidays approach, many of us are exposed to noisy situations: cocktail parties for work, the business of a shopping mall, or large family gatherings. Our brains are hard at work filtering out the things we don’t want to hear so we can focus on what matters. How does this work, and what happens when the noise is just too much?

How Can We Tell That A Violin Is Afraid? Interpreting Emotional Cues In Language And Music

Anastasia Sares — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:25:31 +0000

If you’re looking for the perfect Halloween mood music, check out the piece In Vain by Georg Friedrich Haas. Even if you’re sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea, you can feel the shivers going down your spine as you listen. How does this piece communicate fear so well?