Raffael Schmitt

LIFE Fellow since 2022, University of Zurich

I did my bachelor's and master’s degree in psychology and biology at the University of Zurich. In 2020 I finished my Master with a thesis in which I investigated neurostructural changes in auditory-related brain areas in older adults with hearing loss.
Since June 2020, I am a Ph.D. student at the Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing group at the Department of Computational Linguistics. My Ph.D. projects focus on neural processing of speech in older adults and possible modulatory effects of multisensory training thereof. Understanding speech in noisy environments is one of the most characteristic traits for age-related hearing loss. Importantly, these problems are not always solved by a mere amplification of sounds arriving at the ear (i.e., by fitting a hearing aid). This suggests that parts of the problem are central in nature (i.e., attributable to the nervous system). Using neurophysiological measures (EEG) I aim to identify neural processes that underly speech-in-noise perception problems and whether an app-based audiovisual training might mitigate these problems.

Publications

Higi, L., Schmitt, R., Käser, K., Wälti, M., Grotzer, M., & Vonbach, P. (2023). Impact of a clinical decision support system on paediatric drug dose prescribing: a randomised within-subject simulation trial. BMJ Paediatrics Open, 7(1), Article e001726. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjpo-2022-001726

Neuschwander, P., Schmitt, R., Jagoda, L., Kurthen, I., Giroud, N., & Meyer, M. (2023). Different neuroanatomical correlates for temporal and spectral supra-threshold auditory tasks and speech in noise recognition in older adults with hearing impairment. European Journal of Neuroscience, 57(6), 981–1002. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15922

Schmitt, R., Meyer, M., & Giroud, N. (2022). Better speech-in-noise comprehension is associated with enhanced neural speech tracking in older hearing-impaired adults. Cortex, 151, 133–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2022.02.017