Projects
Current Projects
Cochlear Mechanics and Informational Masking
Information masking has been considered as a central process, but there is some evidence
indicating a possible contribution from the auditory peripheral systems (e.g., cochlea).
Our early studies indicate that listeners with high-frequency sensorineural hearing
loss make greater use of high- frequency information than low even though this strategy
is nonoptimal while the normal-hearing listeners do not show such a trend. Moreover,
the performance trend on how to attend to the information contained in the individual
frequencies of suprathreshold sounds is variable across individuals and is remarkably
consistent over time. The contribution of cochlear mechanics on informational masking
has been explored by using otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). This project is a part of
a collaboration with Glenis Long at the graduate center of CUNY.
Individual Differences Listening in Noise in Clinically Normal-Hearing Adults
Young adults with normal audiometric thresholds vary widely in their ability to listen in noise, some performing as poorly in studies as their age-matched, hard-of-hearing counterparts. The variation has long been recognized but conventionally discounted as unexplained 'error'. This project is to understand differences in the ability of young 'normal-hearing' adults to listen in noise. The goal is to isolate the primary sources of variance and model their effects by determining precisely how listeners differ in their use of information distinguishing targets from noise. This will be achieved by (1) formulating a general decision model relating the listener's trial-by-trial judgments to this information (2) estimating the parameters of this model by logistic regression and (3) comparing the estimated values to those of a maximum-likelihood observer that yields best performance for each task. The approach represents a significant advance over conventional methods that infer underlying processes from measures of performance accuracy.
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