Stefania Benetti

Where and how are comunicative-ostensive signals represented in the human brain? Are they processed at early perceptual stages in early sensory regions or only interpreted later in high-level regions? This project employes functional MRI and psychophysical measures in hearing and seeing adults.

How do lip-reading skills unfold during individual development? What is the impact of an altered sensory experience, such as in the case of auditory deprivation? In this project we aim at developing a dedicated lip-reading test for Italian speakers and to test hearing and deaf individuals at different stages of the development and ageing trajectory.

How are multimodal (visual, auditory and motor) phonemic features represented during audiovisual speech perception in the brain? Are motor and premotor brain regions actively involved in audiovidual sensory proceessing of phonemic information and phoneme categorization? In this progect state-of-art imaging techniques (fMRI, MEG, DTI), psychophysical measures and advanced analitical approaches (multivariate pattern analysis, reppresentational similarity analysis, artificial neural networks) will be combined.

How are multisensory communicative signals integrated in the brain? Is this process implemented along a dedicated processing pathway?  What are the neural dynamics of such computational processes? To answer these questions a combination of fMRI, MEG and psychophysical techniques will be employed.