3 minute read
Voice, Emotion and Cognition Laboratory
Miriam van Mersbergen, PhD is assistant professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She joined the faculty in 2016. Dr. van Mersbergen directs the Voice Emotion and Cognition Laboratory, which uses a multidimensional approach to investigate how emotional experience and cognitive factors influence vocalization and communication. She began her academic career studying music and communication arts at Calvin College. After a brief career in music, she returned to academia and studied speech language pathology and vocology at the University of Iowa and continued with doctoral studies in speech language hearing sciences and psychology at the University of Minnesota. Dr. van Mersbergen is also an affiliate of the Institute for Intelligent Systems. Additionally, she has maintained an active clinical career specializing in the assessment of vocal performers.
Research Interests Dr. van Mersbergen’s research areas include psychological influences in voice production with an emphasis in emotional and cognitive processes. She uses psychometric, behavioral and psychophysiological methods to investigate influences of affect and cognition on voice production. Some of the goals of her research are to gain a better understanding of typical emotional reaction to vocal errors (for example, feedback errors) and to assess if those with certain types of voice disorders respond differently to those errors. In addition, she continues to develop clinical measures and ways to measure vocal effort for application in voice clinics.
Current Research and Applications Current projects include establishing reliable vocal measures of affect modulation, investigating individual differences in response to vocal mistakes and the establishment of measures of vocal effort. Applications of this research have the potential to inform clinicians on how to adapt vocal treatments to accommodate an individual’s cognitive load and temperamental style. Knowing how individuals respond to errors during vocalization will help inform us how clinicians can subsequently train and assist them in learning. With funding from DARPA, van Mersbergen began working on ways to identify when individuals experience high stress levels through vocal measures. This work will eventually help pilots communicate more effectively with automated co-pilots. Another current research project involves developing a fine-tuned measure of vocal effort that will allow speech-language pathologists and other voice professionals to measure speech production effort to ensure individual therapy approaches are effective. Dr. van Mersbergen is also developing an improved voice range profile method that is more efficient and applicable than the traditional measurement techniques. The goal of this project is to educate singers on what their individual vocal parameters are depending on their voice type so they can better use their natural abilities.
Future Endeavors Dr. van Mersbergen would like to continue establishing a better understanding of how people emotionally and cognitively respond to their own vocalizations. She also plans to actively collaborate with colleagues in psychology, music and theater as she has done in the past, which could lead to the creation of many new research studies in the future. Dr. van Mersbergen sees research as a great way to balance clinic work while furthering her understanding of how individuals communicate.
Student Involvement Students involved in Dr. van Mersbergen’s lab gain real-world experience in research and clinical skills due to the assortment of tasks she has available. Students have the opportunity to be involved in many aspects of the research processes from recruiting and running participants through designing experimental paradigms, data analysis and the scientific writing process.
Publication Spotlight 1. van Mersbergen, M., Lyons, P. &
Riegler, D. (2017). Vocal responses in heighted states of arousal. Journal of Voice, 31(1), 127.e13-127.e19 2. Vinney, L., van Mersbergen, M., Connor,
N. & Turkstra, L. (2016). Vocal Control: Is it Susceptible to the Negative Effects of Self-regulatory Depletion?
Journal of Voice, 30(5), e21-e31 3. van Mersbergen, M. & Delany, M. (2013). Vocal Responses to Emotional Picture Viewing. Logopedicas
Phoniatrics Vocology, 39 (3), 99-107. 4. van Mersbergen, M. R., (2011).
Voice disorders and personality: Understanding their interactions. Perspectives on Voice and Voice
Disorders, 21 (1), 31-38. 5. van Mersbergen, M. R., Patrick, C.
J. & Glaze, L. E. (2008). Functional Dysphonia During Mental Imagery: Testing the Trait Theory of Voice Disorders. Journal of Speech Language Hearing Research, 51(6), 1405- 1450.
