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Biography
My research is dedicated to understanding the mechanisms involved in processing auditory and visual speech information and how these processes change with age. Despite unisensory deficits in auditory and visual speech perception, some older adults perceive audiovisual speech on a par with younger adults. This conserved audiovisual speech perception by older adults suggests that age-related changes in multisensory processing can compensate for unisensory deficits. Cross-modal plasticity, multisensory integration, and top-down modulation of sensory input all play an important role in multisensory perception. Culminating evidence suggests that these mechanisms are enhanced with age, but the degree to which age-related changes in these mechanisms can conserve multisensory perception and audiovisual speech remains a critical knowledge gap. I employ a multi-method approach, combining behavioral assessments and functional and structural neuroimaging to study the mechanisms that underly auditory, visual, and audiovisual speech perception to determine how age-related changes in these mechanisms can help conserve audiovisual speech perception with age.