Anahita Mehta, Ph.D.

Meet the Researcher

Mehta received her master’s in audiological science and a doctorate in auditory neuroscience from University College London. After completing postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota, she is now an assistant professor at the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan. A 2025 Emerging Research Grants recipient, Mehta is generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance.

The Research

University of Michigan

Effects of age on interactions of acoustic features with timing judgments in auditory sequences

Imagine being at a busy party where everyone is talking at once, yet you can still focus on your friend’s voice. This ability to discern important sounds from noise involves integrating different features, such as the pitch (how high or low a sound is), location, and timing of these sounds. As we age, even with good hearing, this integration may become harder, affecting our ability to understand speech in noisy environments. Our brains must combine these features to make sense of our surroundings, a process known as feature integration. However, it’s not entirely clear how these features interact, especially when they conflict. For example, how does our brain handle mixed signals regarding pitch and sound location?

Previous research shows that when cues from different senses, like hearing and sight, occur simultaneously, our performance improves. But if they are out of sync, it becomes harder. Less is known about how our brains integrate conflicting cues within the same sense, such as pitch and spatial location in hearing. Our study aims to explore how this ability changes with age and develop a simple test that could be used as an easy task of feature integration, especially for older adults. This research may lead to better rehabilitation strategies, making everyday listening tasks easier for everyone.

Long-term goal: The long-term goals of this project focus on advancing our understanding of auditory feature integration and its implications for temporal perception, particularly regarding aging and hearing loss. By investigating how individuals process and combine auditory cues like pitch, spatial location, and onset timing, we aim to lay the groundwork for future research and applications benefiting those with auditory processing disorders and hearing loss.

One primary goal is to create a comprehensive framework for assessing auditory feature integration across different age groups and hearing abilities. This involves studying how aging affects the interaction of auditory cues and temporal perception, thereby uncovering insights into cognitive processes involved in auditory scene analysis. Collaborations with researchers that study these processes at a circuit level in animal models will help explore broader concepts of sensory perception, linking human and animal research findings.

Another goal is to translate this research into understanding how individuals with unilateral and bilateral sensory loss perceive and weigh acoustic features differently. For instance, we aim to explore how acoustic spatial features, pitch perception, and temporal judgments interact in individuals with single-sided deafness or cochlear implants. This understanding can inform the development of innovative interventions and objective measures to test the efficacy of new processing strategies or auditory rehabilitation training programs.

Additionally, this project will examine the effects of aging on auditory feature integration in individuals with no significant hearing loss. By identifying potential challenges older adults face in integrating auditory cues, we can develop tailored interventions to promote better auditory performance in aging populations. Overall, the long-term goals aim to deepen our knowledge of auditory feature integration across various populations. This research has the potential to innovate auditory rehabilitation strategies, improve communication outcomes for individuals with hearing loss, and create a more inclusive auditory environment for older adults, even those without clinically significant hearing loss.