Team

Dr. Verena G. Skuk (Dipl. Mediensystemwissenschaftlerin)

verena.skuk [at] uni-jena.de

Department of General Psychology
Institute for Psychology
Friedrich Schiller University of Jena
Am Steiger 3/1, Room: 114
07743 Jena, Germany

+49 (0)3641 9 451 85

Sprechzeiten:  nach Vereinbarung

Curriculum Vitae

Positions and Academic Education

since 10/2019 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, PI of DFG-Project Skuk & Schweinberger: “Personality in Voices: Individual Differences in Perception and Production” Research Grant, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), more information under: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/419146903
03/2019 – 10/2019 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Otolaryngology, Institute of Phoniatry and Pedaudiology, Jena, University Hospital, Germany, and Tinnitus-Zentrum, Jena“
09/2016 – 12/2019 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Otolaryngology, Institute of Phoniatry and Pedaudiology, Jena, University Hospital, Germany, TAB Verbund-Projekt „Innovative Methoden und Technologien für das räumliche Hören und Sprachverstehen mit Hörimplantaten“ (more information: https://www.uniklinikum-jena.de/hno/Forschung/Studien/Verbundprojekte.html)
10/2015 – 08/2016 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, BMBF Verbund-Projekt „IRESTRA“ https://www.irestra.de/
09/2014 – 09/2015 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany, DFG-Project “Voice Perception – Basic Parameters”
09/2014 Defense of the phD Thesis: „The Perception of Speaker Gender and Speaker Identity in the Human Voice“
11/2009 – 08/2014 Interdisciplinary phD Student and Post-Graduate Researcher, Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany
10/2009 Defense of the Diplom Thesis: “Studie zur Wahrnehmung und Wirkung chromatischer und achromatischer
Spiegelungen in der Windschutzscheibe“
11/2008 – 05/2009 Internship and Thesis Writing at the Virtual Reality Lab, Volkswagen AG, 38436 Wolfsburg
04/2008 – 09/2008 Student Research Assistant, Chair of Computer Graphics, Bauhaus University of Weimar, Germany
09/2007 – 02/2008 Internship at Jena-Optronik GmbH, Jena
06/2006 – 09/2006 Research Assistant, Chair of Computer Graphics, Bauhaus University of Weimar, Germany
10/2003 – 09/2004 Research Assistant, Chair of Psychophysiology and Perception, Bauhaus University of Weimar, Germany

Reviewing for scientific journals

  • British Journal of Psychology
  • Cognition
  • Cognition and Emotion
  • Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA)
  • JASA Express Letters
  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
  • Perception
  • Plos One
  • Royal Society Proceedings B

Current Research

I am currently working in the Department of General Pschology and Cognitive Neuroscience on my DFG-funded project on “Personality in Voices: Individual Differences in Perception and Production”. In this project I investigate individual differences in people’s abilities to perceive personality and identity in voices. We aim in associating individual diffrences to austict traits in the general population and a sample of patiens with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I am further investigating the abilities  of patients with sensorineural hearing loss, i.e. users with cochlear implants, to perceive voices and speech. My research here involves a long-term evaluation of speech and voice perception and data aquisition is onging until the end of next year is in colaboration with Prof. Dobel. Before this, I was working in a TAB-funded project on the evaluation of novel hearing aid technologies (read more). In this project we a) investigated individual differences in speech understanding and directional hearing in bilaterally implanted Cochlea implant users and compare a novel speech coding strategy developed by the Fraunhofer IDMT with a commercial one and b) evaluate the mechanisms of action of a non-implanted piezoelectric bone conduction hearing aid (Chilian et al. 2017, ISAAR).

My research on voices greatly benefits from the use of the sophisticated voice morphing technology TANDEM-STRAIGHT (Kawahara and Skuk, 2018, Book Chapter in the “Oxford Handbook of Voice Perception”, ISBN: 9780198743187), which I was involved in developing during my PhD time (Kawahara, H., Morise, M., Banno, H., & Skuk, V.G., 2013) The framework allows to morph, average and caricature voices. As some people might not be familiar with the concept of  voice morphing, I present here some example voice morphs I generated from a total set of 36 young adult female voices.

The morph continuum shown in the figure below includes an identity-free average voice (prototype), it is a voice generated as the average of 35 individual voices. Further you can listen to a resynthesis of my own-voice (VGS) that was morphed with the average to create  several identity-reduced voices and anti-voices, as well as some caricatures of my voice with different identity strengths. Please note that these stimuli are provided for demonstrations only, do not use them as stimuli or for further distribution.

Funding

Skuk (2021), “Pilotstudie zum Einfluss von online Feldenkrais-Gruppenstunden (ATMs) auf den chronischen, somatosensorischen Tinnitus (ST)”, funded by “Förderverein für Feldenkrais und somatisches Lernen e. V.”

Skuk (2019), Überbrückungssitpendium, nicht angetreten

Skuk & Schweinberger (2019): “Personality in Voices: Individual Differences in Perception and Production” Research Grant, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), more information under: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/419146903

Publications

Puplications in peer-reviewed journals

  1. Verena Gabriele Skuk, Elisabeth Böer, Daniela Ivansic, Helmut Orawa, Susanne Herzog, Martin Schröder, Orlando Guntinas-Lichius, Christian Dobel (2023). The Effectiveness of Online Feldenkrais Lessons on Somatosensory Tinnitus-A Pilot Study. Preprints, https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1905.v1
  2. Nussbaum, C., von Eiff, C., Skuk, V.G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2022). Vocal emotion adaptation aftereffects within and across speaker genders: Roles of timbre and fundamental frequency. Cognition, 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104967
  3. von Eiff, C., Skuk, V.G., Zäske, R., Nussbaum, C., Frühholz, S., Feuer, U., Guntinas-Lichius, O., Schweinberger, S.R. (2022). “Parameter-specific Morphing Reveals Contributions of Timbre to the Perception of Vocal Emotions in Cochlear Implant Users”. Ear and Hearing. 43(4), 1178-1188. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001181
  4. Zäske, R., Skuk, V.G., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2020). Attractiveness and distinctiveness between speakers´ voices in naturalistic speech and their faces are uncorrelated. Royal Society Open Science, 7(12). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201244
  5. Schweinberger, S.R., von Eiff, C.I., Kirchen, L., Oberhoffner, T., Guntinas-Lichius, O., Dobel, C., Nussbaum, C., & Skuk, V.G. (2020). The Role of Stimulus Type and Social Signal for Voice Perception in Cochlear Implant Users: Response to the Letter by Meister et al. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00595
  6. Skuk, V.G., Kirchen, L., Oberhoffner, T., Guntinas-Lichius, O., Dobel, C., Feuer, U., & Schweinberger, S. R. (2020). Parameter-specific Morphing Reveals Contributions of Timbre and F0 Cues to the Perception of Voice Gender and Age in Cochlear Implant Users. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00026, Supplemental Material: osf.io/f85tj/
  7. Skuk, V.G., Palermo, R., Broemer, L., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2019). Autistic Traits are Linked to Individual Differences in Familiar Voice Identification. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3039-y
  8. Zäske. R., Skuk, V.G., Golle, J., & Schweinberger, S. R. (2019). The Jena Speaker Set (JESS) – A database of voice stimuli from unfamiliar young and old adult speakers. Behavior Research Methods. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01296-0 and https://rdcu.be/b4JEw
  9. Kachel, S., Radtke, A., Skuk, V.G., Zäske, R., Simpson, A.P., & Steffens, M.C. (2018). Investigating the common set of acoustic parameters in sexual orientation groups: A voice averaging approach. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0208686. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208686
  10. Zäske, R., Limbach, K., Schneider, D., Skuk, V.G., Dobel, C., Guntinas-Lichius, O., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2018). Electrophysiological correlates of voice memory for young and old speakers in young and old listeners, Neuropsychologia. 116(B), 215-227, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.08.011
  11. Skuk, V.G., Damman, L.M, Schweinberger, S.R. (2015), Role of Timbre and Fundamental Frequency in Voice Gender Adaptation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(1180), http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4927696
  12. Schweinberger, S.R., Kawahara, H., Simpson, A.P., Skuk, V.G., & Zaeske, R. (2014). Speaker Perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 5(1), 15-25, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/Wcs.1261
  13. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2014) . Influences of Fundamental Frequency, Formant Frequencies, Aperiodicity and Spectrum Level on the Perception of Voice Gender. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57(1), 285-296, http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2013/12-0314)
  14. Skuk, V.G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2013). Adaptation Aftereffects in Vocal Emotion Perception Elicited by Expressive Faces and Voices. Plos ONE, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081691
  15. Zäske, R., Skuk, V.G., Kaufmann, J.M., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2013). Perceiving vocal age and gender: An adaptation approach. Acta Psychologica, 144(3), 583-593, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.09.009
  16. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2013) . Gender Differences in familiar voice identification. Hearing Research, 296,  131-140, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2012.11.004

Pre-Prints

PsyArXiv Preprints

  1. Zäske, R., Schweinberger, S.R., & Skuk. V.G. (June, 2018). Attractiveness and Distinctiveness in Voices and Faces of Young Adults. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2avu3

Book Chapters

Kawahara, H., Skuk, V.G. (2018), Voice Morphing, Chapter 31 in S. Frühholz and P. Belin (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Voice Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 976 Pages, ISBN: 9780198743187, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-voice-perception

Conference Proceedings

  1. Chilian, A., Gadyuchko, M., Kátai, A., Klein, F., Sattel, T., Skuk, V. G., & Werner, S. (2017). Innovative methods and technologies for spatial listening and speech intelligibility using hearing implants. Paper to present in August 23-25 at the ISAAR – International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, Topic: Adaptive Processes in Hearing, Nyborg, Denmark. https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2017-42
  2. Kawahara, H., Morise, M., Banno, H., & Skuk, V.G. (2013). Temporally variable multi-aspect N-way morphing based on interference-free speech representations. In Proc. Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA), 2013 Asia-Pacific, 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/APSIPA.2013.6694355
  3. Froehlich, B., Hochstrate, J., Skuk, V.G., Huckauf, A., (2006). The GlobeFish and the GlobeMouse: two new six degree of freedom input devices for graphics applications. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Mont­réal, Québec, Canada, 191-199

Conference Presentations and Talks

  1. Skuk, V.G., Zäske, R, Martin, F. & Schweinberger, S.R., (2019). Effects of anti-voice adaptation on voice recognition in naturalistic speech: Evidence for norm-based representations of personally familiar voices. Talk at the January 3-4th EPS London Meeting
  2. Von Eiff, C., Skuk, V.G., Zäske, R, Wulf, C., Frühholz, S., Feuer, U., Guntinas-Lichius, O., Schweinberger, S.R., (2019). Perception of emotional expression in voices by cochlear implant users: A parameter-specific voice morphing approach. Poster Presentation at the January 3-4th EPS London Meeting
  3. Skuk, V.G., Broemer, L., Palermo, R. & Schweinberger, S.R., (2016). Autistic Traits are Linked to Individual Differences in Familiar Voice Identification. Poster presentation at the 9th Scientific Meeting for Autism Spectrum Conditions “Therapy Methods”, March 2016, Jena, Germany.
  4. Skuk, V.G., Broemer, L., & Schweinberger, S.R., (2015). Individual Differences In Familiar Voice Identification. Talk at the 12th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception -Current Topics and Perspectives”, October 2015, Jena, Germany. (abstract as .pdf)
  5. Kirchen, L., Skuk, V.G., Schmidt, T., Guntinas-Lichius, G., Feuer, U., Voigt, P., & Schweinberger, S.R., (2015). Perception of Social Information in Voices by Cochlear-Implant Users. Poster presentation at the 12th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception -Current Topics and Perspectives”, October 2014, Jena, Germany. (abstract as .pdf)
  6. Köhler, H., Skuk, V.G., & Schweinberger, S.R., (2015). Multimodal Aftereffects in the Perception of Vocal Age Elicited by Faces and Voices. Poster presentation at the 12th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception – Current Topics and Perspectives”, October 2014, Jena, Germany.
  7. Zäske, R., Skuk, V.G. & Schweinberger, S.R., (2015). The Relationship of Attractiveness and Distinctiveness in Voices and Faces of Young Adult Speakers. Poster presentation at the 12th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception -Current Topics and Perspectives”, October 2014, Jena, Germany.
  8. Skuk, V.G. (2014). The Perception of Speake Gender and Speaker Identity. Talk at the 10th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception – Person Impressions, Emotions, and Social Cognitive Neuroscience”, October 2014, Jena, Germany.
  9. Skuk, V.G., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2013). Uni-, bi-, and cross modal adaptation aftereffects in vocal emotion perception. Poster presentation at the 7th PPRU Workshop “Personperception: Preserved and Impaired: Neuroscientific, Clinical, Experimental, and Computational Evidence”, April 2013, Jena, Germany.
  10. Skuk, V.G., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2013). Aftereffects in the Perception of Vocal Emotions Caused by Unimodal, Bimodal, and Qrossmodal adaptation. Talk at the 55th Tagung Experimente arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP), March 2013, Vienna, Austria.
  11. Zäske. R., Skuk, V.G., Kaufmann, J.M., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2013). On the representation of vocal age and gender. 55th Tagung Experimente arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP), March 2013, Vienna, Austria.
  12. Skuk, V. G., Dammann, L.M., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2012). Role of Vocal Tract Resonances and Fundamental Frequency in Voice Gender Adaptation.  Poster presentation at 8th PPRU Workhop “Foundations of Person Perception – Trends in Cognition and Neuroscience”, October 2013, Jena, Germany.
  13. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2012). Individual Differences and Gender Differences in Voice Perception (abstract.pdf).  Talk at  the 6th PPRU Workshop “Person Perception: Individual differences and differences between groups”, October 2012, Jena, Germany.
  14. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2012). Multimodale Nacheffekte bei der Verarbeitung auditiver emotionaler Stimmen.  Poster presentation at Psychologie und Gehirn, June 2012, Jena, Germany.
  15. Skuk, V.G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2012). Individual Differences in Familiar Voice Identification Among a Group of Adolescents. Talk at the 54. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP), April 2012, Mannheim, Germany.
  16. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R. (2012). Impact of Different Acoustic Parameters on the Perception of Gender in Voices. Talk at the 4th PPRU Workshop “Hot Topics in Person Perception Research in Europe and Overseas”, October 2011, Jena, Germany.
  17. Schweinberger, S. R., Walther, C., Skuk, V. G., Kovács, G., & Zäske, R. (2011). Perception of Voice Gender and Identity: Neurophysiological Correlates. Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS), July 2011, Nottingham, UK.
  18. Schweinberger, S.R., Walther, C., Skuk, V.G., Kovács, G., & Zäske, R., (2011). Perception of Voice Gender and Identity: Neurophysiological Correlates. Presentation at the Annual meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS), July 2011, Nottingham, UK.
  19. Skuk, V. G., Zäske, R., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2011). Influences of Fundamental Frequency, Formant Frequencies, Aperiodicity and Spectral Level Information on the Perception of Gender in Voices. Talk at the 3rd PPRU Workshop “Integrating Cognitive, Neuroscientific, and Social Approaches to Person Perception: Current Status and Future Perspectives”, May 2011, Jena, Germany.
  20. Skuk, V. G., Zäske, R., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2011). “Voice Averaging” of Natural Speech: A Study on Perceptual Adaptation to Speaker Identity using Morphed Voices . Poster presented at International Workshop on Voice and Speech Processing in Social Interactions, April, 2011, Glasgow, Scotland.
  21. Skuk, V. G., Zäske, R., & Schweinberger, S.R. (2011). Voice Averaging of Natural Speech – A Study on the Identification of Personally Familiar Speaker Using Perceptual Adaptation Paradigms. Talk at the 53. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TeaP), March 2011, Halle, Germany.
  22. Skuk, V. G., Schweinberger, S.R., Zäske, R., & Kawahara, H. (2010). Voice averaging in natural sentence stimuli: Studying the identification of personally familiar voices from identity-reduced (anticaricatured) morphs”, Poster presntation at the 2nd PPRU Workshop “Person Perception 25 years after Bruce and Young (1986)”, October 14-16, 2010, Jena, Germany.

Teaching

since 03/2020 Organisation of the Voice Research Unit’s Colloquium
 since 10/2019 B.Sc. Empiriepraktikum: “Multimodal Perception of Emotions I”
seit 10/2016 post gradual teaching: Verschiedene Vorträge im Rahmen der interdisziplinären „Voice Research Unit“ der FSU Jena (Kolloquium zur aktuellen Forschung mit Stimmen, monatlich)
since 10/2012 Post gradual Lehre: Verschiedene Workshops zum “Voice Morphing”
since 02/2009 Post gradual teaching: Various Talks at the weekly colloquium of the Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience „Research Seminars in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience“
10/2014 – 03/2015 with Dr. Zäske and Prof. Schweinberger:
M.Sc. Seminar: “Neuropsychology of Auditory Perception”
04/2011 – 09/2011 with Prof. Schweinberger:
B.Sc. Empiriepraktikum: “Perception of social information in voices II” doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081691
10/2010 – 03/2011 with Prof. Schweinberger:
B.Sc. Empiriepraktikum: “Perception of social information in voices I”

Supervision

Master-Thesis

Bachelor-Thesis

  • Müller, L. (ongoing) Topic: Accuracy of Big-Five Personality Trait Displays
  • Wagner, K (ongoing) Topic: Perception of Autistic Traits from Average Voices
  • Gruber, S. (2022) Autistic Traits and Individual Differences in the Accuracy of Judgments of Personality Traits from Voice Averages and Face Composites
  • Jacobs, I. (2022) Accuracy in Judgments of Personality Based on Voice Averages (Submitted to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
  • Grund, E. (2021) Perception of Masculinity and Autistic Traits in Individual Voices and Faces
  • Beinhoff, L. (2021) Voice Gender and Age Perception, Speech Perception, and Quality of Life in Cochlear Implant Users over Time
  • Zangemeister, M.-K. (2021) Kinship Recognition by Female Voices
  • Happke, L. (2021) Autistische Persönlichkeitsmerkmale und die Attribution von Bewusstseinsfähigkeit auf betrachtete humanoide Roboter
  • Wientzek, R. (2020) Stimmen machen Leute, Leute machen Podcasts: Der Einfluss von Bekanntheit auf die wahrgenommene Persönlichkeit, vokale Attraktivität und „pleasantness” von Podcast-Moderatoren
  • Jesgarzewski, T. (2020) Distinktheit und akustische Parameter der Stimme: Eine explorative Darstellung verschiedener Analysevorgehensweisen
  • Martin, F. (2016) Norm-based Coding of Personally Familiar voices: Effects of Anti-Voice Adaptation in Sentence Stimuli
  • Schlee, S. (2016) Adaptation bei der Wahrnehmung des Alters von Sprechern: Beiträge verschiedener akustischer Parameter
  • Köhler, H. (2015) Multimodal Aftereffects in the Perception of Vocal Age Elicited by Faces and Voices“
  • Dammann, L. (2013) Adaptation bei der Wahrnehmung des Geschlechts in der Stimme – Die Rolle der Grundfrequenz und der Vokaltraktresonanzen 10.1121/1.4927696

Schülerseminarfacharbeiten

  • Breyer, P., Müller, M., Lippert, T., (2020-2021) Wahrnehmung von Emotion und Identität persönlich bekannter und unbekannter Stimmen, Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium Jena
  • Krebs, J., Weidner, N., & Hinschig, R. (2014-2015) Stimmenidentifikation bekannter Stimmen“, Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium, 10.1007/s10803-017-3039-y
  • Degelmann, L., Hammer, A., Rosenkranz, H., & Sauter, B., (2010/2011) Die menschliche Stimme: Höre ich wer du bist? Anger-Gymnasiums, Jena, 10.1016/j.heares.2012.11.004