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I earned my PhD in Psychology; I specialized in brain and behaviour at Queen's University. After completing my doctoral studies, I joined Advanced Telecommunications Research International, a research institute in Japan. It was while I worked in Japan alongside engineers developing interactive robots and other technologies that I solidified my view that basic research is the foundation for innovation.
I work now to uncover the mechanisms of the brain and figure out ways to use this information for health and commercial applications.
I supervise doctoral, master's and undergraduate student theses. My research has been supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States.
I have also had the privilege of serving on peer-review panels for CIHR, NSERC, and NIH. I am the current director of the 51本色 Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience.
Please visit for more information about my research.
We investigate the psychological and neurological foundations of human communication. When people communicate through speech, music or gesture, their brains must process a vast amount of sensory information. A primary goal of our research is to understand the neural mechanisms involved in processing the multisensory information that results from producing and perceiving verbal and nonverbal communication.
We conduct a wide range of studies on speech communication, singing, musicianship, and decision-making. We study both healthy individuals as well as individuals who are challenged by communication disorders caused by Parkinson's disease, autism spectrum disorder, and schizophrenia. The techniques we use include behavioural measures, EEG (electroencephalography), and fMRI.
Our goal is to develop a thorough understanding of these processes in order to improve the remediation of certain communication disorders and impact the design of communication technologies.
I am always seeking highly motivated individuals to join our research endeavours. Background in 1 or more of the following areas is ideal: psychology, neuroscience, biology, speech pathology, engineering, physics, applied math or computer science.
The Department of Psychology at 51本色 has both a MSc and a PhD program in Cognitive Neuroscience, and accepts new graduate students each year.
Work conducted in the lab is related to CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC supported areas of research.
- Callan D., Jones J. A., & Callan, A. (2014). Multisensory and modality specific processing of visual speech in different regions of the premotor cortex. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 389.
- Pieruccini-Faria, F., Jones, J. A., & Almeida, Q. J. (2014). Motor planning in Parkinson's disease patients experiencing freezing of gait: The influence of cognitive load when approaching obstacles. Brain and Cognition, 87, 76–85.
- Scheerer, N., Liu, H., & Jones, J. A. (2013). The developmental trajectory of vocal and event-related potential responses to frequency-altered auditory feedback. European Journal of Neuroscience, 38, 3189–3200.
- Keough, D., Hawco, C. S., & Jones, J. A. (2013). Auditory-motor adaptation to frequency-altered feedback occurs when participants 'ignore' feedback. BMC Neuroscience, 14, 25. .
- Chen, Z., Jones, J. A., Liu, P., Weifeng, L., Huang, D., & Liu, H. (2013). Dynamics of vocalization-induced modulation of auditory cortical activity at mid-utterance. PLoS ONE, 8, e60039. .
- Scheerer, N., Behich, J., Liu, H., & Jones, J. A. (2013). Event-related potential correlates of the magnitude of pitch error detected in the voice. Neuroscience, 240, 176–185.
- Liu, P., Chen, Z., Jones, J. A., Huang, D., & Liu, H. (2013). Developmental sex-specific changes in auditory-vocal integration: ERP evidence in children. Clinical Neurophysiology, 124, 503-513. .
- Scheerer, N. & Jones, J. A. (2012). The relationship between vocal accuracy and variability to the level of compensation to altered auditory feedback. Neuroscience Letters, 529, 128–132. .
- Liu, P., Chen, Z., Jones, J. A., Huang, D., & Liu, H. (2011). Auditory feedback control of vocal pitch during sustained vocalization: A cross-sectional study of adult aging. PLoS ONE, 6(7), e22791. .
- Keough, D. & Jones, J. A. (2011). Contextual cuing contributes to the independent modification of multiple internal models for vocal control. Journal of Neurophysiology, 105, 2448-2456. .
- Chen, Z., Liu, P., Jones, J. A., Huang, D., & Liu, H. (2010). Sex-related differences in vocal responses to pitch feedback perturbations during sustained vocalization. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128, EL355-EL360. .
- Hawco, C. S. & Jones, J. A. (2010). Multiple instances of vocal sensorimotor adaptation to frequency-altered feedback within a single experimental session. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127, EL13-EL18. .
- Keough, D. & Jones, J. A. (2009). The sensitivity of auditory-motor representations to subtle changes in auditory feedback while singing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 126, 837-846. .
- Hawco, C. S. & Jones, J. A. (2009). Control of vocalization at utterance onset and mid-utterance: Different mechanisms for different goals. Brain Research, 1276, 131-139. .
- Jarick, M. & Jones. J. A. (2009). Effects of seeing and hearing speech on speech production: A response time study. Experimental Brain Research, 195, 175-182. .
- Hawco, C. S., Jones, J. A., Ferretti, T. R., & Keough, D. (2009). ERP correlates of online monitoring of auditory feedback during vocalization. Psychophysiology, 46, 1216-1225. .
- Olds, E. S., Graham, T. J., & Jones, J. A. (2009). Feature head-start: Conjunction search following progressive feature disclosure. Vision Research, 49, 1428-1447. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2009.02.008.