The ACNL directed by Gavin M. Bidelman, Ph.D. uses a coordinated blend of techniques including evoked potentials, computational modeling, and psychoacoustics to decipher the neural basis of complex auditory perception. Current projects are focused on understanding the neurocomputations involved in generating basic psychoacoustic phenomena and during music and speech listening. Complementary work examines the neuroplasticity induced by listening experience and training (e.g. music lessons, bilingualism) and how these influences positively affect listening skills. O

                           PUBLICATIONS  |  PRESENTATIONS

Director:
      Gavin M. Bidelman, Ph.D.   (Curriculum Vitae)

Collaborators:
       Claude Alain, Ph.D., Rotman Research Institute & University of Toronto
       Sylvain Moreno, Ph.D., Rotman Research Institute, Toronto
       Laurel Trainor, Ph.D., McMaster University, Psychology  
       Ian Bruce, Ph.D., McMaster University, Electrical & Computer Engineering 

Hardware

• Neuroscan Synamps II 64-ch EEG/ERP System
• Tucker-Davis Technologies (TDT) System 3 Psychoacoustics Workstation
• ER-3/ER-30 Headphones

Software

• Curry 7 Neuroimaging and Signal Processing Suite
• MATLAB 2013
• E-prime
• TDT SigGenRP
• TDT BioSigRP
• SykoFizX 2.0
• SAS/SPSS Statistical Software

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

2013

Hutka, S. A., Binns, M. A., Bidelman, G.M., & Alain, C. (in press). Age-related differences in the sequential organization of speech sounds. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

Bidelman, G.M., Hutka, S., & Moreno, S. (2013). Tone language speakers and musicians share enhanced perceptual and cognitive abilities for musical pitch: Evidence for bidirectionality between the domains of language and music. PLoS One, 8(4), e60676. (PDF)     [Press: Globe & Mail   Science Daily    Huffington Post]

 2012 

Krishnan, A., Bidelman, G. M., Smalt, C. J., Ananthakrishnan, S., & Gandour, J. T (2012). Relationship between brainstem, cortical, and behavioral measures relevant to pitch salience in humans. Neuropsychologia, 50(12), 2849-2859. (PDF)

Smalt, C. J., Krishnan, A., Bidelman, G. M., Ananthakrishnan, S., & Gandour, J. T. (2012). Distortion products and their influence on representation of pitch-relevant information in the human brainstem for unresolved harmonic complex tones. Hearing Research, 292(1-2), 26-34. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., & Bidelman, G. M. (2012). Experience-dependent plasticity in pitch encoding: From brainstem to auditory cortex. NeuroReport, 23(8), 498-502. [invited review] (PDF)

2011

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., Ananthakrishnan, S., Bidelman, G. M., & Smalt, C. J. (2011). Functional ear (a)symmetry in brainstem neural activity relevant to encoding of voice pitch: A precursor for hemispheric specialization? Brain and Language,119(3), 226-231. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., Ananthakrishnan, S., Bidelman, G. M., & Smalt, C. J. (2011). Linguistic status of timbre influences pitch encoding in the brainstem. NeuroReport, 22(16), 801-803. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M., Gandour, J.T., & Krishnan, A. (2011). Musicians demonstrate experience-dependent brainstem enhancement of musical scale features within continuously gliding pitch. Neuroscience Letters,503(3),203-207. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M. & Heinz, M. G. (2011). Auditory-nerve responses predict pitch attributes related to musical consonance-dissonance for normal and impaired hearing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,130(3), 1488-1502. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M., Gandour, J. T., & Krishnan, A. (2011). Musicians and tone-language speakers share enhanced brainstem encoding but not perceptual benefits for musical pitch. Brain & Cognition, 77(1), 1-10. (PDF)

Henry, K. S., Gall, M. D., Bidelman, G. M., & Lucas, J. R. (2011). Songbirds trade off auditory frequency resolution and temporal resolution. Journal of Comparative Physiology-A, 197(4), 351-359. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M. & Krishnan, A. (2011). Brainstem correlates of behavioral and compositional preferences of musical harmony. NeuroReport, 22(5), 212-216. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M., Krishnan, A., & Gandour, J. T. (2011). Enhanced brainstem encoding predicts musicians’ perceptual advantages with pitch. European Journal of Neuroscience, 33(3), 530-538. (PDF)

Bidelman, G. M., Gandour, J. T., & Krishnan, A. (2011). Cross-domain effects of music and language experience on the representation of pitch in the human auditory brainstem. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(2), 424-434. (PDF)

 2010

Bidelman, G. M., & Krishnan, A. (2010). Effects of reverberation on brainstem representation of speech in musicians and non-musicians. Brain Research, 1355, 112-125. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Bidelman, G. M., & Gandour, J. T. (2010). Neural representation of pitch salience in the human brainstem revealed by psychophysical and electrophysiological indices. Hearing Research, 268(1-2), 60-66. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., Smalt, C. J., & Bidelman, G. M. (2010). Language-dependent pitch encoding advantage in the brainstem is not limited to acceleration rates that occur in natural speech. Brain and Language, 114(3), 193-198. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., & Bidelman, G. M. (2010). Brainstem pitch representation in native speakers of Mandarin is less susceptible to degradation of stimulus periodicity. Brain Research, 1313, 124-133. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., & Bidelman, G. M. (2010). The effects of tone language experience on pitch processing in the brainstem. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 23(1), 81-95. (PDF) 

2009

Bidelman, G. M. & Krishnan, A. (2009). Neural correlates of consonance, dissonance, and the hierarchy of musical pitch in the human brainstem. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(42), 13165–13171. (PDF)

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., Bidelman, G. M., & Swaminathan, J. (2009). Experience-dependent neural representation of dynamic pitch in the brainstem. NeuroReport, 20, 408-413. (PDF)

Book Chapters and Conference Proceedings

Pavlik, P., Hua, H., Williams, J., & Bidelman, G. M. (2013). Modeling the effect of spacing on musical interval training. Proceedings of 6^th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, Memphis, TN, July 6–9, 2013.

Gandour, J.,Krishnan, A., & Bidelman, G. M.(2010). Neural substrates of lexical tone as revealed at different stages of cortical and subcortical processing.Proceedings of the 7^th International Conference on Cognitive Science(pp. 32-33). Beijing, China: University of Science and Technology of China Press. 

2013

Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Bidelman, G. M., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Cognitive benefits of music and art training in healthy older adults. Poster presented at the 20th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, April 13–16, 2013.

Bidelman, G. M., Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Short-term musical training enhances pre-attentive auditory processing in older adults. Poster presented at the 20th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, April 13–16, 2013.

Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Bidelman, G. M., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Cognitive benefits of music and art training in healthy older adults. Poster presented at the 2nd Meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society, Los Angeles, CA, March 15–17, 2013.

Bidelman, G. M., Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Short-term musical training enhances pre-attentive auditory processing in older adults. Poster presented at the 2nd Meeting of the Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society, Los Angeles, CA, March 15–17, 2013.

Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Bidelman, G. M., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Cognitive benefits of music and art training in healthy older adults. Talk presented at the Baycrest 23rd Annual Neuroscience Conference: Brain Plasticity & Neurorehabilitation, Toronto, ON, Canada, March 3–6, 2013.

Bidelman, G. M., Weiss, M. W., Moreno, S., & Alain, C. (2013). Musical training strengthens the subcortical-cortical encoding and categorical perception of speech. Poster presented at the 36th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Baltimore, MD, February 16–20, 2013.

Bidelman, G. M., Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Enhanced pre-attentive auditory processing following short-term musical training in older adults. Poster presented at the 41st Meeting of International Neuropsychological Society, Waikoloa, HI, February 6–9, 2013.

Moreno, S., Lee, Y., Bidelman, G. M., Moussard, A., & Alain, C. (2013). Cognitive benefits of music and art training in healthy older adults. Poster presented at the 41st Meeting of International Neuropsychological Society, Waikoloa, HI, February 6–9, 2013.

2012

Hutka, S., Bidelman, G. M., Moreno, S. (2012). Evidence for bidirectionality in music-to-language transfer effects. Poster presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA, October 13–17, 2012.

Kuhn-Popp, N., Herring, A., Rose, N., Craik, F., Rendell, P.G., Moreno, S., Bidelman, G.M., & Kliegel, M. (2012) Virtual-Week Training: A process-oriented training program to improve prospective memory performance in older adults. Poster presented at the 48th Congress of the German Society for Psychology, Bielefeld, Germany, September 23–27, 2012.

Rose, N.S., Craik, F.M., Hering, A., Rendell, P. G., Moreno, S., Bidelman, G. M., & Kliegel, M. (2012) Differential predictors of prospective memory performance in old age: Laboratory and naturalistic tasks are associated with different cognitive processes. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA, April 19–22, 2012.

Bidelman, G. M. (2012). Objective information-theoretic algorithm for detecting brainstem evoked responses to complex stimuli. Poster presented at the 35th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, San Diego, CA, February 25–29, 2012.

Ananthakrishnan, S., Krishnan, A., Smalt, C.J., & Bidelman, G. M. (2012). Brainstem-level Temporal Fine Structure Encoding in Cochlear Hearing Loss. Poster presented at the 35th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, San Diego, CA, February 25–29, 2012.

Krishnan, A., Smalt, C. J., Bidelman, G. M., Ananthakrishnan, S., & Gandour, J. T. (2012). Hierarchical transformations from sensory representations to percept: Relationships between brainstem, cortical, and behavioral encoding of pitch salience. Poster presented at the 35th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, San Diego, CA, February 25–29, 2012.

2011

Bidelman, G. M., & Heinz, M.G. (2011). Auditory-nerve responses predict pitch attributes related to musical consonance and dissonance for normal and impaired hearing. Poster presented at the 34th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Baltimore, MD, February 19–23, 2011.

Bidelman, G. M., Krishnan, A., & Gandour, J. T. (2011). Enhanced brainstem pitch encoding in tone-language speakers does not translate to perceptual benefits for music. Poster presented at the 34th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Baltimore, MD, February 19–23, 2011.

Ananthakrishnan, S., Krishnan, A., Gandour, J.T., Bidelman, G.M., & Smalt, C.J. (2011). Brainstem origins of the differential hemispheric laterality for linguistic and nonlinguistic pitch. Poster presented at the 34th Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Baltimore, MD, February 19–23, 2011.

Bidelman, G. M., & Heinz, M. G. (2011). Auditory-nerve responses predict pitch attributes related to musical consonance and dissonance for normal and impaired hearing. Poster presented at the Sigma Xi Graduate Student Research Awards Competition, Purdue University, February 7, 2011.

2010

Bidelman, G. M., Krishnan, A., & Gandour, J. T. (2010). Neural representation of pitch salience in the human brainstem revealed by psychophysical and electrophysiological indices. Poster presented at the 33rd Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Anaheim, CA, February 6–10, 2010.

Bidelman, G. M., Krishnan, A., & Gandour, J. T. (2010). Brainstem pitch representation in native speakers of mandarin is less susceptible to degradation of stimulus temporal regularity. Poster presented at the 33rd Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Anaheim, CA, February 6–10, 2010.

Ananthakrishnan, S., Krishnan, A., & Bidelman, G. M. (2010). Human frequency following response: Differential responses to positive & negative gain of iterated rippled noise (IRN) stimuli. Poster presented at the 33rd Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Anaheim, CA, February 6–10, 2010.

2009

Bidelman, G. M., Krishnan, A., & Gandour, J.T. (2009). The effects of tone language experience on pitch processing in the brainstem. Poster presented at the inaugural Neurobiology of Language Conference (NLC ’09), Chicago, IL, October 15–16, 2009.

Bidelman, G. M., Gandour, J.T., & Krishnan, A. (2009). Relative influence of musical and linguistic experience on the subcortical encoding of pitch. Poster presented at the Annual Conference of the Society of Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC ‘09), Indianapolis, IN, August 3–7, 2009.

Bidelman, G. M., & Krishnan, A. (2009). Subcortical correlates of consonance, dissonance, and musical pitch hierarchy in the human brainstem. Poster presented at the Annual Conference of the Society of Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC ’09), Indianapolis, IN, August 3–7, 2009.

Bidelman, G. M., Gandour, J. T., & Krishnan, A. (2009). Cross-domain effects of language and music experience on the representation of pitch in the human auditory brainstem. Poster presented at the16th Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, March 21–24, 2009.

Krishnan, A., Gandour, J. T., Bidelman, G. M., & Swaminathan, J. (2009). Experience-dependent neural representation of dynamic pitch in the brainstem. Poster presented at the American Auditory Society Annual Meeting, Scottsdale, AZ, March 5–7, 2009.