Preserving communication
& cognitive vitality
AUDITORY AGING
Welcome to the Auditory Aging Lab. We use behavioural, neuroimaging, computational, and social approaches to understand how people adapt to hearing and cognitive challenges as they age.
Latest news
Oct 2025 - Publication
In this new work from the lab, we show that disengagement from speech listening due to either external visual distraction or internal thoughts and imagination reduces the neural encoding of the speech envelope in auditory cortex. This work suggests that neural measures could provide markers of when people disengagement from listening in acoustically challenging situations.
Sep 2025 - Annual Newsletter
We are excited to share our first annual newsletter from the Auditory Aging Lab. It comprises an overview of what we study, what we have learned, and where we are headed next. Inside, you will find lab updates, conference highlights, student and trainee spotlights, features on current projects, recent publications, and a look at the team behind the work.
Sep 2025 - Publication
New work from the lab, showing that mobile eye-tracking glasses can be used to assess listening effort through pupil size and eye movements. Mobile eye-tracking glasses have an advantage over stationary eye-trackers. We show that head movements measured by the mobile glasses also indicate listening challenges, such that people reduce their head movements when listening becomes more effortful.
July 2025 - Publication
Recent work from our lab focuses on the neural signatures of engagement and event segmentation during story listening in background noise. We show activity patterns in effort-related brain regions become more similar among listeners as speech masking increases and that speech masking affects little the sensitivity to meaningful events in stories. It appears that listeners can comprehend the gist of stories even when intelligibility is reduced.
July 2025 - Publication
New work from our lab, exploring the experiences of older people with vision loss listening to narratives in podcasts and audiobooks. Lived experiences are characterized by adaptations, learning to listen to audiobooks, and the building of connections that foster social engagement and companionship through audiobook listening.
Lab tour
Watch an introductory tour through our lab. You will see magneto- and electro-encephalography, which we use to record brain activity, and our eye-tracking device, which we use to record eye movements and pupil dilation. We use these tools to learn what happens when we age and speech comprehension becomes effortful, and how we can help older people comprehend speech better.
Participate in our research
If you are interested in our research and would like to take part as a participant in our research studies, please send us an email through our participant registration form.
Check out the video lab tour in the section above to learn what techniques we use in our research laboratory. But we also do research beyond the lab environment, where we conduct qualitative interviews to learn about the daily experiences of individuals and potential challenges associated with hearing loss and cognitive decline.
Research opportunities
If you are interested in research opportunities in the area of Auditory Aging, please find more details here. You may also want to read about skills that may help you to be successful in your undergraduate and graduate studies.
Postdoctoral researchers
Postdocs are typically hired through dedicated calls. Outside of dedicated job posts, individuals may want to look at the funding opportunities such as the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award program or fellowships from foundations such as the Alzheimer's Society
Graduate students
We often look for people who are interested in our work and who could see themselves as a PhD student (see our open positions). Please also check out the application information at UofT. You also want to look into the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship program.
Undergraduate students
Undergraduate students should send Dr. Herrmann a CV, transcript, writing sample, as well as a short description of why they are interested in working with us and the time commitment they are able to make.
Current and previous funding
We are grateful for the financial support we have received from government, foundation, and private sources to conduct our research. We are committed to making a positive impact in the lives of older people through our research.
