Laboratory for Auditory Perception in Children and Adults

Focus of Lab

Our lab focuses to study whether and how hearing loss affects the ability to use auditory cues for speech understanding differently in children and adults. The findings will inform researchers and clinicians which auditory cues are more accessible and important to individuals with hearing loss at a given age. Additionally, we seek approaches to compensate for the vital cues that are inaccessible to children and adults with hearing loss. The findings will provide insights for the design of sensory aids (e.g., hearing aids and cochlear implants) and auditory rehabilitation tools.

To fulfil our research goals, we conduct experiments in which participants perform listening tasks to identify target signals. Participants are individuals with normal hearing, or with hearing loss, or using cochlear implants. The signals involve natural speech, synthetic speech, and non-speech sounds presented in the presence or absence of various types of noise. With careful manipulations on physical properties (i.e., auditory cues) of signals and background noise, analysis of participants’ performance will provide answers to our research questions.

Personnel

Yingjiu Nie, Ph.D., Director
Husna Firdose, M.S., Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant (PhD dissertation)
Nicole Kirk, B.S., Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant
Becca Civil, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
Joanna Goedeke, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
Katherine Mueller, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
Audrey Jones, (CSD undergraduate research assistant)

Alumni

Sandra Tober, BS in CSD, (2023)

Honors Thesis:

Lara Leggio, AuD, (2023)

Dissertation:

Bonnie Purtill, AuD (2022)

Dissertation: The relationship between quality of life outcomes and social hearing for cochlear implant recipients using the NCIQ and PIPSL

Taylor Arbogast, AuD (2022)

Dissertation: Remote-Frequency Masking and Speech Perception in Adults

Caroline Whillhite , BS in CSD (2022)

Honors Project

Victoria (Tori) Whitney, AuD (2021)

Dissertation: Influence of musicianship, socioeconomic status, and working memory on children’s speech recognition in noise

Harley Wheeler, AuD (2020)

Dissertation: Music and speech perception by prelingually-deafened young listeners with cochlear implants

Diana Burke, BS in CSD (2019)

Honors Project (IRB faculty supervisor): Deaf Education: The Past, Present, and Future

Leanne Gardner, AuD (2019)

Dissertation: Audiologists’ preferences in programming cochlear implants

Victoria Andre, AuD (2019)

Dissertation: Music and speech perception in children using sung speech: Effects of neurocognitive factors

Michael Morikawa, AuD (2018)

Dissertation: Melodic contour identification and speech recognition by school-aged children

Alexandria Matz, AuD (2018)

Dissertation: The build-up of auditory stream segregation in adult cochlear implant users: Effect of differences in frequency and amplitude-modulation rate

Sarah Troy, BS in CSD (2017) & Lindsey Seyfried, BS in CSD (2017)

Honors Project: Effects of age, timbre, pitch contour, and background noise on melodic contour identification and sentence recognition by children

Alexandra Short, AuD (2017)
Harley Wheeler, BS in CSD (2016)

Honors Thesis: Build-up effect of auditory stream segregation using amplitude-modulated narrowband noise

Abigail Compton, BS in CSD (2016)
Mary Shannon Carroll, BS in CSD (2015)
Caleb Harrington, BS in CSD (2015)
Mick Blackwell, BS in Engineering (2015)

Current Projects

* denotes student coauthor

Speech perception in noisy environments by children: Effects of peripheral, neurocognitive, and other factors

The factors of interest in the current effort are musical training and pertinent factors.

Wheeler*, H.J., Hash, D., Moody-Antonio, S., & Nie, Y. (2022). Music and speech perception in prelingually-deafened young listeners with cochlear implants—A study using sung speech. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research: JSLHR, 65(10), 3951–3965. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00271

Nie, Y., Galvin (Jr III), J., Morikawa*, M., Andre*, V., Wheeler*, H., and Fu, QJ. (2018). Music and speech perception in children using sung speech. Trends In Hearing, 22, 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216518766810.

The attentional effect on stream segregation in cochlear implant users

Matz*, A., Nie, Y., & Wheeler*, H.J. (2022). Auditory stream segregation of amplitude-modulated narrowband noise in cochlear implant users and individuals with normal hearing. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 927854. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.927854

Wheeler*, H.J., Nie, Y (2016) Build-up Effect of Auditory Stream Segregation Using Amplitude-Modulated Narrowband Noise. In: Communication Sciences and Disorders, vol. Senior Honors Harrisonburg: James Madison University. commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/216/

Audiologists’ clinical practices

Audiologists’ practices in cochlear implant services

Leggio*, L., Nie, Y.,& Rout, A. (2022, May). What is the Reality of Counseling in Clinical Practice for Pediatric Cochlear Implant Audiologists? Poster presentation at CI2022 DC Emerging Issues In Cochlear Implantation. Washington, D.C.
Browning*, L., Nie, Y., Rout, A., & Heiner, M. (2020). Audiologists’ preferences in programming cochlear implants: A preliminary report. Cochlear Implants International, 1–13. Advance online publication.

Audiologists’ practices in audiometric testing and tinnitus services

Recent Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications