Samira Anderson

About

Samira Anderson is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, having joined the faculty in January 2013. She has a background in clinical audiology and specializes in studying the neural processing of speech across the lifespan. Her research focuses on how processing impairments affect language acquisition in infants and speech perception in older adults. Anderson primarily uses electrophysiology as her research tool, complemented by perceptual and imaging assessment techniques in collaboration with other faculty. She is a faculty member of the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, the Center for Comparative and Evolutionary Biology of Hearing, and the Language Science Center. Her research interests include the neurobiology of speech perception, learning-associated neural plasticity, aging, hearing loss, auditory development, and the neural processing of auditory input across the lifespan. Anderson's lab investigates speech sound differentiation development in infants, the relationship between subcortical speech encoding and language development, and the effects of aging and hearing loss on speech understanding in complex environments. Her work aims to improve methods for early identification and treatment of language-based learning impairments and to develop better rehabilitation approaches for older adults with hearing difficulties. Anderson is dedicated to advancing audiology and hearing science through…

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Audiology
• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Speech recognition
• Cognitive psychology
• Optics
• Telecommunications
• Acoustics

Selected publications

• High gamma cortical processing of continuous speech in younger and older listeners

  NeuroImage · 2020 · 64 citations

  Neural processing along the ascending auditory pathway is often associated with a progressive reduction in characteristic processing rates. For instance, the well-known frequency-following response (FFR) of the auditory midbrain, as measured with electroencephalography (EEG), is dominated by frequencies from ∼100 Hz to several hundred Hz, phase-locking to the acoustic stimulus at those frequencies. In contrast, cortical responses, whether measured by EEG or magnetoencephalography (MEG), are typi…

  DOI

• Objective evidence of temporal processing deficits in older adults

  Hearing Research · 2020 · 57 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Effects of aging on cortical representations of continuous speech

  Journal of Neurophysiology · 2023-04-25 · 35 citations

  articleOpen access

  We observed age-related changes in cortical temporal processing of continuous speech that may be related to older adults' difficulty in understanding speech in noise. These changes occur in both timing and strength of the speech representations at different cortical processing stages and depend on both noise condition and selective attention. Critically, their dependence on noise condition changes dramatically among the early, middle, and late cortical processing stages, underscoring how aging d…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Peripheral deficits and phase-locking declines in aging adults

  Hearing Research · 2021 · 25 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Neural Plasticity Induced by Hearing Aid Use

  Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience · 2022-05-19 · 17 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Age-related hearing loss is one of the most prevalent health conditions in older adults. Although hearing aid technology has advanced dramatically, a large percentage of older adults do not use hearing aids. This untreated hearing loss may accelerate declines in cognitive and neural function and dramatically affect the quality of life. Our previous findings have shown that the use of hearing aids improves cortical and cognitive function and offsets subcortical physiological decline. The current…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Age-related changes in neural encoding and perception of temporal speech cues

  NIH · $436k · 2016–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Nina Kraus

  Northwestern University

  69 shared

• Alessandro Presacco

  Children's National

  29 shared

• Matthew J. Goupell

  University of Maryland, College Park

  27 shared

• Travis White‐Schwoch

  Northwestern University

  21 shared

• Jonathan Z. Simon

  University of Maryland, College Park

  19 shared

• Alexandra Parbery‐Clark

  Swedish Medical Center

  16 shared

• Sandra Gordon‐Salant

  University of Maryland, College Park

  15 shared

• Stefanie E. Kuchinsky

  University of Maryland, College Park

  9 shared

Labs

• Hearing and Speech Sciences Department, University of MarylandPI

Education

• Ph.D., Communication Sciences and Disorders

  Northwestern University

  2012

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