Hans-Peter Frey Ph.D.

Research Fellow

• tel: (718) 862-1824
•  Personal webpage 
   

Research Interests:

• Attentional selection 
• We are able to selectively attend to or suppress parts of our environment, specific objects or even simple features, such as colors or auditory frequencies. My research interest is focused the dynamics as well as cortical mechanisms of attentional selection, deployment as well as suppression.
• 
  Sensory and speech processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders 
• My work with clinical populations at Einstein is focused on Rett Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Since patients with Rett Syndrome are often unable to speak, many researchers and clinicians assume that they also do not understand language. This would mean that one important aspect of cognition is absent in these patients. However, parents and caregivers will claim that Rett patients do understand spoken language. Through an NIH-funded project I am conducting a series of EEG experiments that will allow us to quantify different aspects of speech perception in individuals with Rett Syndrome.
  In line with my interest in visual attention, my interest in autism arose as a result of clinical observations that individuals with ASD often exhibit peculiarities in eye-gaze, with behaviors such as looking out of the corner of the eye. I hypothesize that the mechanism underlying these behaviors in some children with ASD relate to atypicalities in the representation of peripheral visual space.  And indeed, EEG results pointed towards enhanced processing of visual stimuli presented in the peripheral visual field in ASD children.
• 
  

  Selected publications

   
• Belyusar, Snyder, Frey, Harwood, Wallman, & Foxe, 2012  
  Frey, Wirz, Willenbockel, Betz, Schreiber, Troscianko, & König, 2011
  Frey, Kelly, Lalor, & Foxe, 2010
  Frey, Honey, & König, 2008 

Follow us on Facebook