Vaden

Research Summary: Kenny Vaden. Although speech communication may seem easy, background noise and hearing loss can dramatically affect the difficulty of speech recognition. I research hearing and speech recognition in difficult listening conditions, and how these vary across the lifespan. My primary research focus is age-related speech recognition difficulty, especially how brain activity relates to the cognitive demands of acoustic noise. My other research interests include auditory perception, reading disability, advanced statistical techniques and computational modeling, and different cochlear pathologies involved with age-related hearing loss.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Hearing Research Program at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston. My research collaborators include Mark Eckert, Judy Dubno, Carolyn McClaskey, and Susan Teubner-Rhodes. I completed my PhD studies in Psychology from the Department of Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine in 2009. My dissertation research focused on the cortical substrates of speech recognition, advised by Dr. Greg Hickok, which involved developing a lexical database (IPhOD) and conducting behavioral and fMRI experiments on speech recognition. My postdoctoral training built on that foundation with a focus on how neural systems involved in speech recognition change with increasing age and hearing loss.

Online Tools

Irvine Phonotactic Online Dictionary. The IPhOD is a large collection of English words and pseudowords that I developed at UC Irvine for research on speech perception and production. The IPhOD allows researchers to select items for experiments, based on measures related to speech sounds or to answer questions such as: Which contains more unusual sound-sequences, dog or cat? Which sounds like fewer other English words? What are some nonsense words with similar lexical-phonological qualities? All of the tools on the website are freely available for academic and personal use. [Link]

Neuroimaging Analysis with Missing Data. Aging and clinical research presents unique challenges to fMRI analysis that include variability in motion and morphology, which can result in missing data. In Vaden et al. (2012), we demonstrated that brain regions are often excluded from group level statistical tests due to a small number of missing values. We also showed that multiple imputation can be used to perform statistic tests and estimate group level results in regions with predictable missingness. We developed a toolkit that can be downloaded from NITRC.ORG, to implement this technique for other group level fMRI analyses. [Link]

Pythagorean Displacement and Motion Regressors. Head movement in the scanner can result in fMRI artifacts that are related to position as well as motion. A common strategy to control these artifacts in fMRI signal is to include head position parameters as nuisance covariates in regression analyses. This Matlab script (ZIP archive) uses the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the magnitude of head movement in the scanner, while conserving degrees of freedom by condensing 3D head position estimates into 1D displacement and motion vectors. [Link]

Publications

Guo, F, Zucker, D, Vaden, KI, Curhan, S, Dubno, JR, Wang, M (2024). New quadratic discriminant analysis algorithms for correlated audiometric data. Statistics in Medicine, available online.

Eckert, MA, Matthews, LJ, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR (2024). Executive function associations with audibility-adjusted speech perception in noise. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, ePub ahead of issue.

Yang, C, Langworthy, B, Curhan, S, Vaden, KI, Curhan, G, Dubno, JR, Wang, M (2024). Soft classification and regression analysis of audiometric phenotypes of age-related hearing loss. Biometrics, 80(1): ujae013. [PMCID: PMC10941322]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Paracchini, S (2024). Auditory cortex asymmetry associations with individual differences in language and cognition. Brain Sciences, 14(1). [PMCID: PMC10813516]

Vaden, KI, Neely, S, Harris, S, Dubno, JR (2023). Metabolic and sensory components of age-related hearing loss: Associations with distortion- and reflection-based otoacoustic emissions. Trends in Hearing, 27. [PMCID: PMC10655661]

Lewis, MA, Schulte, J, Matthews, LM, Vaden, KI, Steves, CJ, Williams, FMK, Schulte, BA, Dubno, JR, Steel, KP (2023). Accurate phenotypic classification and exome sequencing allow identification of novel genes and variants associated with adult-onset hearing loss. PLOS Genetics, 19(11): e1011058. [PMCID: PMC10718637]

Teubner-Rhodes, S, Luu, A, Dunterman, R, Vaden, K (2023). Evidence for conflict monitoring during speech recognition in noise. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

Joshi, F, Wang, JZ, Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA (2023). Deep learning classification of reading disability with regional brain volume features. NeuroImage, 273. [PMCID: PMC10167676]

Eberhard, JE, Matthews, LJ, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2023). Probability distributions for associations between cognitive screening and pure-tone thresholds in older adults. Ear & Hearing, 44(3), 641-654. [PMCID: PMC10101874]

Vaden, KI, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2022). Evidence for cortical adjustments to perceptual decision criteria during word recognition in noise. NeuroImage, 253:119042 [PMCID: PMC9082296]

Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA, Matthews, LJ, Schmiedt, RA, Dubno, JR (2022). Metabolic and sensory components of age-related hearing loss. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 23(2), 253-272. [PMCID: PMC8964894]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Iuricich, F, Dyslexia Data Consortium (2022). Cortical asymmetries at different spatial hierarchies relate to phonological processing ability. PLOS Biology, 20(4): e3001591. [PMCID: PMC8982829]

Eckert, MA, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Vaden, KI, Ahlstrom, JB, McClaskey, CM, Dubno, JR (2022). Unique patterns of hearing loss and cognition in older adults' neural responses to listening difficulty cues during speech recognition. Brain Structure and Function, 227(1): 203-218. [PMCID: PMC9044122]

Eckert, MA, Harris, K, Lang, H, Lewis, M, Schmiedt, RA, Schulte, BA, Steel, K, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR (2021). Translational and interdisciplinary insights into presbyacusis: a multidimensional disease. Hearing Research, 402: 108109. [PMCID: PMC7927149]

Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher, M, Eckert, MA (2020). Fully synthetic neuroimaging data for replication and exploration. NeuroImage, 223:117284. [PMCID: PMC7688496]

Eckert, MA, Iuricich, R, Vaden, KI, Glaze, B (2020). The topology of pediatric structural asymmetries in language-related cortex. Symmetry, 12(11):1809. [PMCID: PMC8547740]

Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA, Dubno, JR, Harris, KC (2020). Cingulo-opercular adaptive control for younger and older adults during a challenging gap detection task. Journal of Neuroscience Research, 98(4), 680-691. [PMCID: PMC7000297]

Wilmskoetter, J, Fridriksson, J, Gleichgerrcht, E, Stark, BC, Delgaizo, J, Hickok, G, Vaden, KI, Hillis, AE, Rorden, C, Bonilha, L (2019). Neuroanatomical structures supporting lexical diversity, sophistication, and phonological word features during discourse. NeuroImage: Clinical, 24, 101961. [PMCID: PMC6699249]

Fultz, S, Vaden, KI, Rasetshwane, DM, Kopun, JG, Neely, ST, Dubno, JR. (2019). Age effects on cochlear reflectance in adults. Ear and Hearing. [PMCID: PMC7386826]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR. (2019). Age-related hearing loss associations with changes in brain morphology. Trends in Hearing. [PMCID: PMC6585256]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Dyslexia Data Consortium. (2019). A deformation-based approach for characterizing brain asymmetries at different spatial scales of resolution. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 322(1), 1-9. [PMCID: PMC6546427]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Roberts, DR, Castles, A. (2019). A pericallosal lipoma case with evidence of surface dyslexia. Cortex, 117, 414-416. [PMCID: PMC6822169]

Bologna, WJ, Vaden, KI, Ahlstrom, JA, Dubno, JR. (2019). Age effects on the contributions of envelope and periodicity cues to recognition of interrupted speech in quiet and with a competing talker. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Express Letters, 145(3), EL173. [PMCID: PMC7112707]

Vaden, KI, Matthews, LJ, Dubno, JR. (2018). Transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions reflect audiometric patterns of age-related hearing loss. Trends in Hearing. Available online: Sep 10, 2018. [PMCID: PMC6131303]

Bologna, WJ, Vaden, KI, Ahlstrom, JA, Dubno, JR. (2018). Age effects on perceptual organization of speech: contributions of glimpsing, phonemic restoration, and speech segregation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(1), 267-281. [PMCID: PMC6047943]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher M, Dyslexia Data Consortium. (2018). Reading profiles in multi-site data with missingness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 644. [PMCID: PMC5952106]

Chiarello, C, Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA. (2018). Orthographic influence on spoken word identification: Behavioral and fMRI evidence. Neuropsychologia, 111, 103-111. [PMCID: PMC5866781]

Harris, KC, Vaden, KI, McClaskey, C, Dias, J, Dubno, JR. (2018). Complementary metrics of human auditory nerve function derived from compound action potentials. Journal of Neurophysiology, 119(3), 1019-1028. [PMCID: PMC5899314]

Vaden, KI, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA. (2017). Cingulo-opercular activity affects incidental memory encoding for speech in noise. NeuroImage, 157, 381-387. [PMCID: PMC5600838]

Vaden, KI, Matthews, LJ, Eckert, MA, Dubno, JR (2017). Longitudinal changes in audiometric phenotypes of age-related hearing loss. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 18(2), 371-385. [PMCID: PMC5352606]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Bentzley, BS. (2017). A novel communication value task demonstrates evidence of response bias in cases with presbyacusis. Scientific Reports, 16512. [PMCID: PMC5705661]

Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Maxwell, A, Cute, SL, Gebregziabher, M, Berninger, V, Dyslexia Data Consortium. (2017). Common brain structure findings across children with varied reading disability profiles. Scientific Reports, 6009. [PMCID: PMC5519686]

Teubner-Rhodes, S, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA. (2017). Cognitive persistence: Development and validation of a novel measure from the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Neuropsychologia, 102, 95-108. [PMCID: PMC5538310]

Gebregziabher, M, Eckert, MA, Vaden, KI, Johnson, TD, Lawson, AB (2017). Methods for the Analysis of Missing Data in FMRI Studies. J Biom Biostat, 8, 335. [PMCID: PMC6510494]

Venezia, JH, Vaden Jr., KI, Rong, F, Maddox, D, Saberi, K, Hickok, G (2017). Auditory, Visual and Audiovisual Speech Processing Streams in Superior Temporal Sulcus. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 174. [PMCID: PMC5383672]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Ahlstrom, JB, Teubner-Rhodes, SE, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2016). Cingulo-opercular function during word recognition in noise for older adults with hearing loss. Experimental Aging Research, 42(1):67-82. [PMCID: PMC4899824]

Eckert, MA, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Vaden, KI (2016). Is listening in noise worth it? The neurobiology of speech recognition in challenging listening conditions. Ear and Hearing, 37(S1): 101S-110S. [PMCID: PMC4929997]

Teubner-Rhodes, S, Vaden KI, Cute, SL, Yeatman, JD, Dougherty, RF, Eckert, MA (2016). Aging-resilient associations between the arcuate fasciculus and vocabulary knowledge: microstructure or morphology? Journal of Neuroscience, 36(27):7210-7222. [PMCID: PMC4938863]

Eckert, MA, Berninger, VW, Hoeft, F, Vaden, KI, Dyslexia Data Consortium (2016). A case of bilateral perisylvian syndrome with reading disability. Cortex, 76: 121–124. [PMCID: PMC4776332]

Eckert, MA, Berninger, VW, Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher, M, Tsu, L (2016). Gray matter features of reading disability: a combined meta-analytic and direct analysis approach. eNeuro, 3(1): 0103-15.2015. [PMCID: PMC4724065]

Kuchinsky, SE, Vaden, KI, Ahlstrom, JB, Cute, SL, Humes, LE, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2016). Task-related vigilance during word recognition in noise for older adults with hearing loss. Experimental Aging Research, 42(1):50-66. [PMCID: PMC4702493]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2015). Cortical activity predicts which older adults recognize speech in noise and when. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(9), 3929-3937. [PMCID: PMC4348188]

Harris, KC, Vaden, KI, Dubno, JR (2014). Auditory-evoked cortical activity: contribution of brain noise, phase locking, and spectral power. Journal of Basic and Clinical Physiology and Pharmacology, 25(3), 277-284. [PMCID: PMC5585860]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Cute, SL, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2013). The cingulo-opercular network provides word recognition benefit. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(48), 18979-18986. [PMCID: PMC3841458]

Eckert, MA, Kuchinsky, SE, Vaden, KI, Cute, SL, Spampinato, MV, Dubno, JR (2013). White matter hyperintensities predict low frequency hearing in older adults. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. [PMCID: PMC3642278]

Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher, M, Kuchinsky, SE, Eckert, MA (2012). Multiple imputation of missing fMRI data in whole brain analysis. NeuroImage, 60(3), 1843-1855. [PMCID: PMC3328786]

Kuchinsky, SE, Ahlstrom, JB, Vaden, KI, Cute, SL, Humes, LE, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2012). Pupil size varies with word listening and response selection difficulty in older adults with hearing loss. Psychophysiology, 50(1), 23-34. [PMCID: PMC3527636]

Eckert, MA, Cute, SL, Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Dubno, JR (2012). Auditory cortex signs of age-related hearing loss. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 13(5), 703-713. [PMCID: PMC3441956]

Kuchinsky, SE, Vaden, KI, Keren, NI, Harris, KC, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2012). Word intelligibility and age predict visual cortex activity during word listening. Cerebral Cortex, 22(6), 1360-1371. [PMCID: PMC3357178]

Isenberg, A, Vaden, KI, Saberi, K, Muftuler, LT, Hickok, GS. (2012). Functionally distinct regions for spatial processing and sensory motor integration in the planum temporale. Human Brain Mapping, 33(10), 2453-2463. [PMCID: PMC5242090]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Keren, NI, Harris, KC, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2011). Inferior frontal sensitivity to common speech sounds is amplified by increasing word intelligibility. Neuropsychologia, 49(13), 3563-3572. [PMCID: PMC3207245]

Vaden, KI, Piquado, T, Hickok, G (2011). Sublexical properties of spoken words modulate activity in Broca's area but not superior temporal cortex: implications for models of speech recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(10), 2665-2674. [PMCID: PMC5988210]

Vaden, KI, Muftuler, LT, Hickok, G (2010). Phonological repetition-suppression in bilateral superior temporal sulci. Neuroimage, 49, 1018-1023. [PMCID: PMC2764799]

Vaden, KI (2009). Phonological processes in speech perception. (Doctoral thesis, University of California, Irvine).

Research Presentations

Posters

Vaden, KI, Neely, ST, Harris, SE, Dubno, JR (2024). Associations of distortion- and reflection-based otoacoustic emissions with metabolic and sensory components of age-related hearing loss. Association for Research in Otolaryngology Midwinter Meeting. Anaheim, CA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher, M, Eckert, MA. (2020). Fully synthetic neuroimaging data for replication and exploration. Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Virtual format. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Teubner-Rhodes, S, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA. (2018). Cortical activity and incidental memory for speech in noise. Association for Research in Otolaryngology Mid-Winter Meeting. San Diego, CA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA, Dubno, JR, Harris, KC. (2017). Adaptive control for gap detection across the lifespan. Seventh Biennial Aging and Speech Communication Conference, Tampa, FL. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Eckert, MA, Matthews, LJ, Dubno, JR. (2016). Metabolic presbyacusis: longitudinal changes in hearing for middle-aged and older adults. Association for Research in Otolaryngology Mid-Winter Meeting. San Diego, CA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Teubner-Rhodes, SE, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA. (2015). Cingulo-opercular interactions with auditory cortex activity during speech recognition in noise. Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Chicago, IL. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA. (2014). Cingulo-opercular network support for word recognition by older adults. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Charleston, SC. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Cute, SL, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2013). Engagement of the cingulo-opercular system enhances future word recognition. Neurobiology of Language Conference, San Diego, CA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Cute, SL, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2013). Cingulo-opercular activity predicts subsequent word recognition. Fifth Biennial Aging and Speech Communication Conference, Bloomington, IN. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Cute, SL, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2012). Anterior insula and frontal operculum support word recognition in younger and older adults. Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Gebregziabher, M, Kuchinsky, SE, Eckert, MA (2012). Multiple imputation toolkit for group level fMRI statistics. 13th Annual Frontiers in Neuroscience Research Day: Neurodegenerative Disorders, Seabrook, SC. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Kuchinsky, SE, Cute, SL, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2011). An fMRI study of age-related changes in sustained attention and word recognition. Fourth Biennial Aging and Speech Communication Conference, Bloomington, IN. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Keren, NI, Harris, KC, Ahlstrom, JB, Dubno, JR, Eckert, MA (2010). Sublexical processing in left inferior frontal gyrus depends on word intelligibility. Neurobiology of Language Conference; Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Hickok, G (2009). Sublexical and lexical processing in temporal and frontal lobes during word recognition. Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, IL. [PDF]

Vaden, KI, Hickok, G (2009). Adaptation to phonologically similar words in bilateral superior temporal sulci. Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA. [PDF]

Updated: November 4, 2024.