Sophie Scott

Last updated

Sophie Scott
FMedSci FBA
Sophie scott photo.jpeg
Scott in June 2014
Born
Sophie Kerttu Scott

(1966-11-16) 16 November 1966 (age 58) [1] [2]
Blackburn, England [2]
Nationality British
Education
Alma mater
Known for
Awards Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (2017)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions University College London
Thesis Perceptual centers in speech-acoustic determinants  (1993)
Doctoral advisor Peter Howell [5]
Scott's voice
recorded June 2014
Website ucl.ac.uk/pals/people/profiles/academic-staff/sophie-scott

Sophie Kerttu Scott CBE FMedSci FBA (born 16 November 1966 [1] [2] ) is a British neuroscientist and Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow at University College London (UCL). [1] Her research investigates the cognitive neuroscience of voices, speech and laughter particularly speech perception, speech production, vocal emotions and human communication. [4] [6] [7] She also serves as director of UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. [8]

Contents

Education and early life

Scott was born in Blackburn, England [2] to Colin Mountford Scott and Christine Winnifred Scott. [1] She was educated at Westholme School and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn. [1] She completed a Bachelor of Science degree in life sciences at the Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster) in 1990 [1] [3] followed by research on cognitive science in 1993 supervised by Peter Howell and a PhD at University College London in 1994. [5]

Career and research

Scott started her research career in Cambridge at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, formerly known as the Applied Psychology Unit. She returned to UCL as a research fellow in 1998. She was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship in 2001 and has been funded by them since. [8] As of 2017 she holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship. She is a member of the British Psychological Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the Experimental Psychology Society. [9]

Scott is head of the Speech Communication Group [10] at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research investigates the neural basis of vocal communication – how our brains process the information in speech and voices, [11] and how our brains control the production of our voice. [4] [6] [7] [12] [13] Within this, her research covers the roles of streams of processing in auditory cortex, hemispheric asymmetries, [14] and the interaction of speech processing with attentional and working memory factors. [15] Other interests include individual differences in speech perception and plasticity in speech perception, since these are important factors for people with cochlear implants. She is also interested in the expression of emotion in the voice [16] and the neuroscience of laughter. [9]

Public engagement

Scott is known for her public engagement work, including performing standup comedy, [17] and was featured in a September 2013 edition of the BBC Radio Four programme The Life Scientific . [18] In March 2014, she was invited to give a Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution on the science of laughter. [19] Her work on laughter has also toured science fairs and exhibitions as part of the Laughter lab project. [20] She has been awarded a UCL Provost's Award for Public engagement. [21] Scott presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2017 entitled The Language of Life which explored the topic of communication. [22]

Scott has been a panel guest several times on BBC Radio 4 programme The Infinite Monkey Cage on episodes covering neuroscience, reality and the human voice [23] . She is also a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4 programme Curious Cases . [24]

In 2016, she appeared on the BBC TV series Horizon , The Science of Laughter with comedian Jimmy Carr. [25]

Awards and honours

Scott was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2012. [1] [26] Her citation on election to the Academy of Medical Sciences reads:

She has drawn together theories and techniques from speech sciences, psychology and primate neuroanatomy in order to understand how the human brain processes speech. Her work was the first to identify that the early perceptual processing of speech parallels the perception of conspecific calls in non-human primate brains. This has contributed to our understanding of recovery from aphasic stroke. She has applied this work to hearing loss, with particular reference to how people can adapt to cochlear implantation. She is now extending her work to understanding the social aspects of communication. [26]

In 2015 Scott spoke at the TED conference [27] and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2016. [1]

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to neuroscience. [28]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Anon (2017) "Scott, Prof. Sophie Kerttu" . Who's Who (online Oxford University Press  ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.258412.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 4 Wolfe, Alexandra (15 May 2015). "Sophie Scott and the Science of Laughter". wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Scott, 48 ... Born in Blackburn, England"
  3. 1 2 Sophie Scott's ORCID   0000-0001-7510-6297
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sophie Scott publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  5. 1 2 Scott, Sophie Kerttu (1993). Perceptual centers in speech-acoustic determinants. london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University College London (University of London). OCLC   941026288. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.342728.(registration required)
  6. 1 2 Sophie Scott publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  7. 1 2 Sophie Scott publications from Europe PubMed Central
  8. 1 2 "Professor Sophie Scott University College London" (PDF). British Psychological Society. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  9. 1 2 "Meet Sophie Scott". The Royal Institution. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  10. ↑ Anon (2017). "speech communication lab". sites.google.com.
  11. ↑ Scott, Sophie K.; Blank, C. Catrin; Rosen, Stuart; Wise, Richard J. S. (2000). "Identification of a pathway for intelligible speech in the left temporal lobe". Brain . 123 (12): 2400–2406. doi:10.1093/brain/123.12.2400. ISSN   0006-8950. PMC   5630088 . PMID   11099443.
  12. ↑ Blank, S. C. (2002). "Speech production: Wernicke, Broca and beyond". Brain . 125 (8): 1829–1838. doi: 10.1093/brain/awf191 . ISSN   1460-2156. PMID   12135973.
  13. ↑ Rauschecker, Josef P.; Scott, Sophie K. (2009). "Maps and streams in the auditory cortex: nonhuman primates illuminate human speech processing". Nature Neuroscience . 12 (6): 718–724. doi:10.1038/nn.2331. ISSN   1546-1726. PMC   2846110 . PMID   19471271.
  14. ↑ McGettigan, Carolyn; Scott, Sophie K. (2012). "Cortical asymmetries in speech perception: what's wrong, what's right and what's left?". Trends in Cognitive Sciences . 16 (5): 269–276. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.006. ISSN   1879-307X. PMC   4083255 . PMID   22521208.
  15. ↑ Phillips, M. L.; Young, A. W.; Scott, S. K.; Calder, A. J.; Andrew, C.; Giampietro, V.; Williams, S. C.; Bullmore, E. T.; Brammer, M. (1998). "Neural responses to facial and vocal expressions of fear and disgust". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 265 (1408): 1809–1817. doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0506. ISSN   0962-8452. PMC   1689379 . PMID   9802236.
  16. ↑ McGettigan, C.; Walsh, E.; Jessop, R.; Agnew, Z. K.; Sauter, D. A.; Warren, J. E.; Scott, S. K. (2015). "Individual Differences in Laughter Perception Reveal Roles for Mentalizing and Sensorimotor Systems in the Evaluation of Emotional Authenticity" (PDF). Cerebral Cortex . 25 (1): 246–257. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht227. ISSN   1047-3211. PMC   4259281 . PMID   23968840.
  17. ↑ Guttenplan, Don David (2010). "Academics Making Forays Into Stand-Up Comedy". The New York Times .
  18. ↑ Al-Khalili, Jim (2013). "The Life Scientific, Sophie Scott". bbc.co.uk. BBC . Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  19. ↑ Scott, Sophie (11 June 2014). The Science of Laughter. YouTube.com. Royal Institution.
  20. ↑ Anon (2017). "LOL: the art and science of laughter". sites.google.com.
  21. ↑ Anon (30 January 2013). "Provost's Awards for Public Engagement". ucl.ac.uk. University College London.
  22. ↑ Anon (25 August 2017). "The Royal Institution 2017 Christmas Lectures". rigb.org. Royal Institution.
  23. ↑ "The Infinite Monkey Cage". BBCRadio 4. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  24. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kv7j
  25. ↑ "Jimmy Carr and the science of laughter". BBC Two. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  26. 1 2 Anon (2012). "Professor Sophie Scott FMedSci". acmedsci.ac.uk. London: Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 1 August 2016.
  27. ↑ Sophie Scott at TED OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  28. ↑ "No. 63135". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 2020. p. B10.
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