We were lucky to have two new researchers, Thomas Koelewijn and Laura Rachman, who joined us for the VICI project. After earlier work on audiovisual perception and attention, Thomas has been very productive in listening effort in normal and impaired hearing, especially in utilizing pupillometry. Laura joined us with her expertise on processing of vocal emotion cues, and the computer transformation of these cues as a research tool.
Welcome Thomas and Laura to db SPL Lab!
Leanne Nagels’s paper (co-authors Petra Hendriks, Etienne Gaudrain, and Debi Vickers) is chosen as one of the best student/early-career researcher papers at VIHAR 2019! Congratulations Leanne!
Nawal El Boghdady will defend her thesis: “On the color of voices: The relationship between cochlear implant users’ voice cue perception and speech intelligibility in cocktail-party scenarios” on 24 June 2019, 11:00.
The ceremony will take place at the Aula of the RUG Academy Building.
There will be a celebration seminar on 25 June, “Revisiting voice and speech perception in cochlear implant users.” Detailed info is here.
Program:
Date: 25 June 2019, TUESDAY
Time: 10:00 hr
Location: Panoramazaal, UMCG
Organizer: Drs. Nawal El Boghdady
Link for broadcasting: https://tinyurl.com/25-06-19-AudSeminar
Benefits of Extended High Frequency Hearing (EHF),
Dr. Dave Moore
Effects of Ototoxicity and Otitis Media on EHF Hearing
Dr. Lisa Hunter
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, University of Cincinnati, USA
Date: 20 June 2019, THURSDAY
Time: 12:30 hr
Location: Lokaal 10, Onderwijscentrum, UMCG
Organized by: Prof. Pim van Dijk
The next WAS-dag (Meeting Werkgemeenschap Auditief Systeem) will take place in Groningen, on 29 May 2019.
Program:
Deniz is elected to be a member of the Technical Committee on Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, Acoustical Society of America. Her term will be 3 years, starting from 2020.
Marita Everhardt, who is affiliated with our lab and doing her PhD work supervised by Wander Lowie and Tassos Sarampalis, has won the best presentation award at the BCN PhD Retreat. Congratulations!
Investigating cochlear synaptopathy with envelope following responses
Dr. Gerard Encina-Llamas
Hearing Systems Group
Department of Health Technology
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Date: 12 April 2019, FRIDAY
Time: 14:00 hr
Location: Lokaal 4, Onderwijscentrum, UMCG
Organized by: Prof. Pim van Dijk
The effect of attention and reward on the pupil dilation response during speech processing in noise
Dr. Thomas Koelewijn
Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery
VU University Medical Center
Date: 29 March 2019, FRIDAY
Time: 14:00
Location: P2.246, Blauwe Patio, UMCG
Broadcasting link: http://tinyurl.com/29-03-19-AudSeminar
Organized by: Drs. Leanne Nagels
Summary:
Following a conversation in a noisy environment is often effortful, especially for people with a hearing impairment. The pupil dilation response is a well-validated measure to quantify mental effort. Studies show larger pupil dilations in response to more challenging listening conditions (e.g. with interfering speech) compared to easier listening situations (stationary noise). Recent research shows that processes like working-memory, attention, and extrinsic motivation are associated with the pupil dilation response. In this talk, I will briefly introduce pupillometry as a method for quantifying listening effort and I will show results of recent studies on the effect of attention and reward on the pupil dilation response during speech processing in noise. To what degree processes affect cognitive load differently in people with hearing loss compared to normally hearing adults with acquired brain injury will be addressed as well.