Jack Silcox

Assistant Professor

CV:  View CV
Email: jacksilcox@usf.edu
Office: PCD 4139

Campus: Tampa

BIOGRAPHY

Jack Silcox is an Assistant Professor, who joined the Cognition, Neuroscience, and Social program in August 2026. He studies how the brain responds to and processes speech. Specifically, he is interested in understanding how acoustic challenge (e.g., the challenge associated with a hearing impairment or background noise) changes the way that the brain responds to and processes speech. His lab uses a variety of cognitive neuroscientific methods including electroencephalography (EEG), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and pupillometry (measurement of pupil size over time).

EDUCATION

  • 2023, Ph.D., Cognition and Neural Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Utah
  • 2021, M.S., Cognition and Neural Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Utah
  • 2018, M.S., Applied Statistics, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Loyola University
  • 2016, B.S., Neuroscience, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Brigham Young University

SPECIALTY AREA

Cognitive Nueroscience

RESEARCH

Listening effort; cognitive aging; language processing; speech processing; cognitive neuroscience

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS

Silcox, J.W., Bennett, K., Strayer, D., Ferguson, S.H., & Payne, B.R. (in press). Differential impacts of acoustic challenge on three language-related ERP components during speech processing: Evidence from the N400, the P600, and a late frontal response.

Silcox, J. W., & Payne, B. R. (2025). Did you say brain or brave? Event-related potentials reveal the central role of phonological prediction in false hearing. Brain and Language, 267, 105580.

Silcox, J. W., Bennett, K., Copeland, A., Ferguson, S. H., & Payne, B. R. (2024). The costs (and benefits?) of effortful listening for older adults: Insights from simultaneous electrophysiology, pupillometry, and memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(6), 997-1020.

O’Brien, T. E., & Silcox, J. W. (2024). Nonlinear regression modelling: a primer with applications and caveats. Bulletin of mathematical biology, 86(4), 40.

Silcox, J. W., Mickey, B., & Payne, B. R. (2023). Disruption to left inferior frontal cortex modulates semantic prediction effects in reading and subsequent memory: Evidence from simultaneous TMS‐EEG. Psychophysiology, 60(9), e14312.

Payne, B. R., Silcox, J. W., Crandell, H. A., Lash, A., Ferguson, S. H., & Lohani, M. (2022). Text captioning buffers against the effects of background noise and hearing loss on memory for speech. Ear and Hearing, 43(1), 115-127.

Silcox, J. W., & Payne, B. R. (2021). The costs (and benefits) of effortful listening on context processing: A simultaneous electrophysiology, pupillometry, and behavioral study. Cortex, 142, 296-316.