Photo of Jerker Rönnberg

Jerker Rönnberg

Professor Emeritus

I have been interested in the human memory for a long time. Working memory is important for our
communication skills, especially for people with impaired hearing. My current research focuses primarily on hearing loss and working memory capacity.  

Cognitive Hearing Science 

My research group has developed the research area of cognitive hearing science that describes and models the brain´s work during high cognitive load communication situations. The research has contributed to applications for both the hearing aid industry and hearing care.

Cognitive abilities for communication

To get a comprehensive picture of communicative disability, one needs to relate cognitive abilities to communicative potential and circumstances. Prediction studies and experimental manipulations have proven to be fruitful. In our division, we have studied the communicative potential of persons with cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, intellectual disability, using some core cognitive concepts that typically draw on memory functions. More recently, I have shown that working memory capacity plays a key role for deafened speech-readers, sign language users, for users of cochlear implants and for hearing aid users, especially when signal processing in the hearing aid is more advanced and/or when listening conditions are challenging. 

We listen and understand with the brain 

Imagine yourself at a party, chatting one on one with another guest.  You struggle to hear everything the person is saying amid the din of surrounding conversation. And even though you miss a word here and there, you have enough context to understand the gist of what the person is saying. In this type of situation, you’re relying on different kinds of knowledge stored in your brain, including contextual cues and relevant memories, to process the information you’re receiving. This knowledge use is critical not only for people trying to converse in a noisy ballroom, but especially for people who struggle with hearing impairments. Imagine repeating the above mental processes in just about every conversation you have. We have named the research area Cognitive Hearing Science (CHS). CHS acknowledges the intergral role cognition plays in communication. Specifically, CHS examines the way our minds process the auditory signals being sent to the brain, factoring in the complexity of what we are listening to and the quality of the listening conditions.

Modelling the signal-cognition interface in communication

In a model that I and colleagues have developed, Ease-of-Language Understanding (ELU) under adverse or distracting listening conditions is assumed to depend on the complex interactions between working memory capacity (WMC), attention, and executive functions, and episodic and semantic long-term memory. This kind of approach has already proven to be fruitful for a more comprehensive grasp of the subtle interplay between bottom-up (sensory) and top-down (cognitive) processes, including both online processes and long-term changes (negative or positive) due to hearing impairment/deafness and aging. We test the model by means of both behavioral and brain imaging data, including data from functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and pupil size. The model has played an important role in the development of the new area of Cognitive Hearing Science.

Long-term effects of hearing impairment 

One prediction of the ELU model is that when the input to the ear is sufficiently poor, or when the person is hearing impaired, there is an increased probability that the phonological-lexical activation in long-term memory will fail, i.e., there is a mismatch between input to the brain and the representations stored in the brain. This will trigger working memory activity, attempting to reconstruct and fill in what has been misheard. Working memory will therefore be constantly exercised, while long-term memory will be relatively more disused: when some items are not encoded, neither will they be stored ore retrieved as frequently as working memory is exercised. The general consequence is that long-term memory will decline, but working memory capacities will remain. We have shown this to be true with different type of memory tasks and for purely visuospatial materials in a large data base, the UK Biobank. 

We hear with our ears, but listen and understand with our brain

The brain´s roll

This video is about our research on hearing loss and deafness and the brain´s role in our hearing and how everyday life can be made easier for people with hearing loss. In sign language, ASL.

News

Research programs, commissions etc.

Research projects / programs

  • The Linnaeus HEAD research program  
  • The n200 longitudinal project on cognitive aging, hearing loss, and dementia 
  • The sensory-cognitive communication factor: preserving social interaction and health in aging


 

Commissions / Awards

  • National Committee for psychology, Academy of Sciences
  • The Stuart Gatehouse Memorial Lecture
  • Invited participant in the international project: Towards a comprehensive model of human memory

Publications

2024

Emil Holmer, Jerker Rönnberg, Erkin Asutay, Carlos Tirado, Mattias Ekberg (2024) Facial mimicry interference reduces working memory accuracy for facial emotion expressions PLOS ONE, Vol. 19, Article e0306113 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Rachel Ellis, Jerker Rönnberg, Charlotta Plejert (2024) Combined effects of age and hearing impairment on utterances and requests for clarification in spontaneous conversation and a referential communication task International journal of language and communication disorders, Vol. 59, p. 293-303 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2023

Victoria Stenbäck, Erik Marsja, Rachel J. Ellis, Jerker Rönnberg (2023) Relationships between behavioural and self-report measures in speech recognition in noise International Journal of Audiology, Vol. 62, p. 101-109 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Shahram Moradi, Jerker Rönnberg (2023) Perceptual Doping: A Hypothesis on How Early Audiovisual Speech Stimulation Enhances Subsequent Auditory Speech Processing Brain Sciences, Vol. 13, Article 601 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Lina Homman, Henrik Danielsson, Jerker Rönnberg (2023) A structural equation mediation model captures the predictions amongst the parameters of the ease of language understanding model Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 14, Article 1015227 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2022

Jerker Rönnberg, Anu Sharma, Carine Signoret, Tom A. Campbell, Patrik Sorqvist (2022) Editorial: Cognitive hearing science: Investigating the relationship between selective attention and brain activity Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol. 16, Article 1098340 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Andreea Micula, Jerker Rönnberg, Patrycja Ksiazek, Reena Murmu Nielsen, Dorothea Wendt, Lorenz Fiedler, Elaine Hoi Ning Ng (2022) A Glimpse of Memory Through the Eyes: Pupillary Responses Measured During Encoding Reflect the Likelihood of Subsequent Memory Recall in an Auditory Free Recall Test Trends in Hearing, Vol. 26, Article 23312165221130581 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Jerker Rönnberg, Carine Signoret, Josefine Andin, Emil Holmer (2022) The cognitive hearing science perspective on perceiving, understanding, and remembering language: The ELU model Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 13, Article 967260 (Article, review/survey) Continue to DOI
Rina Blomberg, Carine Signoret, Henrik Danielsson, Irene Perini, Jerker Rönnberg, Andrea Johansson Capusan (2022) Aberrant resting-state connectivity of auditory, ventral attention/salience and default-mode networks in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol. 16, Article 972730. (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Jerker Rönnberg, Emil Holmer, Mary Rudner (2022) The Ease of Language Understanding Model The Cambridge Handbook of Working Memory and Language, p. 197-218 (Chapter in book) Continue to DOI

Research projects

Research environments