Defensa tesi doctoral: Sonia Arenillas-Alcón

"Neural encoding of speech in newborns: voice pitch, formant structure and the effects of prenatal acoustic environment"

Doctoral thesis conducted by Sonia Arenillas-Alcón under the supervision of Drs Carles Escera and Jordi Costa-Faidella, coordinator and researcher in Cognitive neuroscience (IRSJD) and BrainLab (Institut de Neurociències de la Universitat de Barcelona).

The doctoral thesis defense will be held in person at the Sala Miquel Siguan de la Facultat de Psicologia de la Universitat de Barcelona (Campus Mundet).

Abstract

The thesis employs a brain response derived from EEG known as the frequency-following response to study the abilities of newborns to perceive language sounds and their attributes, and to investigate the influence of the fetal environment on these capacities. It has been conducted in collaboration between the research groups in cognitive neuroscience (PI: Carles Escera) and environment and complications in pregnancy (PI: M. Dolores Gómez-Roig).