Participants
Current Projects
The lab is regularly recruiting for a variety of research projects. Below is a list of the projects for which we are currently recruiting. Check them out and let us know if you would like to participate. Please check back too - as new projects are added frequently.
Perception of Voice Quality
Abnormal voice quality (dysphonia) is typically associated with a variety of disorders related to the structure or function of the larynx. We are conducting a series of studies to better understand the perception of voice quality with the goal of helping healthcare professionals improve diagnostic and treatment protocols and patient outcomes.
Activity Aware Hearing Aids
Today's best hearing aids are amazingly good at identifying the location of the most prominent speech sound. Unfortunately, they don't know where we are looking or what we want to listen to. This project is designed to discover relations between the sound in the environment, what we actually want to listen to, and how we position and move our heads during listening and communication.
Auditory Plasticity & Aging
We know the brain changes as we age. We want to learn just how flexible - or plastic - the brain is as we get older in the hopes of one day using that plasticity to improve hearing!
Neural Bases of Hearing Aid Benefit
Hearing aids are designed to improve communication by selective amplification speech sounds at certain locations. Not all listeners benefit from this "directional processing" strategy. To gauge hearing aid benefit, participants listen to speech in background sound while we record brain activity. This will allow us to better understand who benefits from hearing aids, when the benefit occurs, and what changes in the brain to allow benefit.
Perception of Acoustic Features
Our team is made up of leading experts in auditory perception. We routinely conduct studies to better understand how people with normal hearing or hearing loss perceive various sound features or speech sounds in various acoustic environments. We need participants to help us better understand how we hear complex sounds in complex environments.