Kelly L. Whiteford, PhD

Kelly is a research associate in the Department of Psychology in the Cognitive and Brain Sciences area. She received a BA in Cognitive Science and a minor in Music at UC Berkeley in 2012. From 2012-2013, she was the lab manager for the Visual Perception and Aesthetics Lab and the Hafter Auditory Perception Lab. Afterwards, she moved to Minnesota to join the Auditory Perception and Cognition Lab and received her PhD in Psychology in 2018. Her research uses psychoacoustics, perceptual learning, and electroencephalography (EEG) to understand the mechanisms of normal and disordered hearing across the adult lifespan. She is also interested in auditory plasticity and musical expertise.

Educational Background

Ph.D.: Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2018

B.A.: Cognitive Science, University of California, Berkeley, 2012

Grant Support

Alzheimer’s-Focused Administrative Supplement for NIH Grants that are Not Focused on Alzheimer’s Disease. 12/1/22 – 11/30/23. Role: PI

NIDCD Early Career Research Award (R21). Neural and Perceptual Mechanisms for Coding Frequency Modulation. 12/1/21 – 11/30/24. Role: PI

Publications

Shorey, A. E., King, C. J., Whiteford, K. L., & Stilp, C. E. (2024). Musical training is not associated with spectral context effects in instrument sound categorization. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1-17.

Whiteford, K. L., Goh, P., Stevens, K. L., Oxenham, A. J. (2023). Dissociating sensitivity from bias in the Mini Profile of Music Perception Skills. JASA Express Letters, 3(9). 

Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2023). Sensitivity to frequency modulation is limited centrally. The Journal of Neuroscience, 43(20), 3687-3695.

Whiteford, K. L., Kreft, H. A., & Oxenham, A. J. (2020). The role of cochlear place coding in the perception of frequency modulation. eLife, e58468. 

Whiteford, K. L., Schloss, K. B., Helwig, N. E., &Palmer, S. E. (2018). Color, music, and emotion: Bach to the blues. i-Perception, 9(5), 1–25. doi:10.1177/2041669518808535.

Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A.J. (2018). Learning for pitch and melody discrimination in congenital amusia. Cortex, 103, 164-178. 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.03

Madsen, S. M. K., Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2017). Musicians do not benefit from differences in fundamental frequency when listening to speech in competing speech backgrounds. Scientific Reports, 7.

Whiteford, K. L., Kreft, H. A., & Oxenham, A. J. (2017). Assessing the role of place and timing cues in coding frequency and amplitude modulation as a function of age. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 18(4), 619-633.

Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2017). Auditory deficits in amusia extend beyond poor pitch perception. Neuropsychologia, 99, 213-224.

Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2015). Using individual differences to test the role of temporal and place cues in coding frequency modulation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(5), 3093-3104.

Prinzmetal, W., Whiteford, K. L., Austerweil, J. L., & Landau, A. N. (2015). Spatial attention and environmental information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(5), 1396-1408.

 

Whiteford Profile Photo