Samantha R O'Connell

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Scientific Consultant at NIRx Medical Technologies LLC

Listening to groovy music is an enjoyable experience and a common human behavior in some cultures. Specifically, many listeners agree that songs they find to be more familiar and pleasurable are more likely to induce the experience of musical groove. While the pleasurable and dance-inducing effects of musical groove are omnipresent, we know less ab...

Cochlear implants have been used to restore hearing to more than half a million people around the world. The restored hearing allows most recipients to understand spoken speech without relying on visual cues. While speech comprehension in quiet is generally high for recipients, many complain about the sound of music. The present study examines cons...

There is a great need for brain-based measures in the assessment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) for better diagnosis and treatment evaluation, and for development of brain-based models (in keeping with RDoC). Withinindividual variability in performance is commonly cited as reflecting inconsistent control of attention in ADHD, an...

Attention control is the ability to selectively attend to some sensory signals while ignoring others. This ability is thought to involve two processes: enhancement of sensory signals that are to be attended and the attenuation of sensory signals that are to be ignored. The overall strength of attentional modulation is often measured by comparing th...

Selective attention decreases trial-to-trial variability in cortical auditory-evoked activity. This effect increases over the course of maturation, potentially reflecting the gradual development of selective attention and inhibitory control. Work in adults indicates that music training may alter the development of this neural response characteristi...

Children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds tend to fall progressively further behind their higher-income peers over the course of their academic careers. Music training has been associated with enhanced language and learning skills, suggesting that music programs could play a role in helping low-income children to stay on track academically. Using...

Musicians have increased resilience to the effects of noise on speech perception and its neural underpinnings. We do not know, however, how early in life these enhancements arise. We compared auditory brainstem responses to speech in noise in 32 preschool children, half of whom were engaged in music training. Thirteen children returned for testing...

The perception and neural representation of acoustically similar speech sounds underlie language development. Music training hones the perception of minute acoustic differences that distinguish sounds; this training may generalize to speech processing given that adult musicians have enhanced neural differentiation of similar speech syllables compar...

The brain’s activity at rest changes dramatically as it develops. Resting oscillatory power within delta and theta bands, for example, decreases steadily between childhood and late adolescence (Gasser et al., 1988). Individual differences in resting EEG power have been linked to gray matter volume (Whitford et al., 2007). Thus, decreases in resting...