[AUDITORY] PhD (UK home students): Linking cognition, language understanding, and conversation behaviour (Glasgow)

["Lauren Hadley (staff)" <000001ac8dbc686b-dmarc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear colleagues,

Applications are invited for a fully-funded 3-year PhD studentship based in the Scottish Section of the University of Nottingham’s Hearing Sciences department, located in Glasgow.  This is a thriving centre of research into how people use their hearing, how hearing impairment affects them, and how new technologies might help. The PhD will investigate how cognitive processes underlying language understanding affect behaviour in conversation, starting in spring 2026. Please share this widely, deadline: 12^th January.

This PhD investigates the links between basic cognitive processes and conversation behaviour, with the aim of finding new ways to assess the everyday benefit of hearing interventions (e.g., hearing aids). The project will explore prediction (of what someone will say, or when their turn will be finished), postdiction (of words that were missed), as well as other cognitive processes (such as effort, metacognition), to derive novel kinds of conversational benefit measures.

Experiments will be carried out in our state-of-art laboratory, in which several people can hold a conversation while their body and eye movements are tracked in real time. The student will be trained to use a range of relevant experimental techniques, which could also include transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (including hyperscanning) if relevant. This project forms part of a larger research programme investigating context-use and hearing loss, with the ultimate aim of understanding the basis of social difficulty to develop hearing technology able to help. The PhD student will work within a research team having expertise in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, acoustics, and engineering.

Due to funding restrictions, applicants should be a UK national (the studentship covers home fees only, in addition to a living stipend) and have an undergraduate degree in Psychology, Hearing Sciences, Linguistics, or a related subject (relevant Master’s degree will be an advantage). We are looking in particular for someone with a background in research methods (multi-method experience being a bonus) as well as a keen interest in speech and communication.

To apply, please send a CV and cover letter to: lauren.hadley1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Lauren V Hadley
UKRI Future Leader Fellow

Associate Professor

Hearing Sciences – Scottish Section, School of Medicine
T. +44 (0) 7814 060 066 | W.  hs-predict

 

New papers: 

Nicoras, Fischer, Naylor, Smeds & Hadley (2025): Self-reported conversation success in groups involving adults with normal and impaired hearing, International Journal of Audiology

Nicoras, Buck, Fischer, Godfrey, Hadley, Smeds, & Naylor (2025): Effective design for experiments on small-group conversation: Insights from an example study, American Journal of Audiology

Fernandez, Shehzad, Hadley (2025): Effects of hearing loss on semantic prediction: Delayed prediction for intelligible speech when listening Is demanding, Ear and Hearing

Fernandez, Shehzad, & Hadley (2025): Younger adults may be faster at making semantic predictions, but older adults are more efficient, Psychology and Aging

Whitley, Beechey, & Hadley (2025): Who said that? The effect of hearing ability on following sequential utterances from varying talkers in noise, Trends in Hearing

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