The long-term objective of the proposed research is to understand binaural interaction and to apply this understanding to the problems of the hearing impaired. The proposed research, which is a direct outgrowth of previous work by the same investigators and includes substantial amounts of both psychophysical experimentation and theoretical modeling, is characterized by its concern with a broad range of binaural phenomena, its thrust toward the development of a unified quantitative theory that is consistent with physiological data, and its use of highly developed laboratory facilities and experimented techniques. In addition, the proposed research includes substantial work on impaired listeners as well as normal listeners. Study of impaired listeners is included both in order to gain further understanding of binaural interaction and in order to help alleviate the problems of the hearing impaired. During the proposed grant period, the theoretical research will proceed in two directions: (1) the development of hypothetical neural mechanisms that are consistent with available physiological data from the auditory nerve and the lateral and medial superior olives and (2) the development of psychoacoustic models that explicitly include a description of the information provided by the neural mechanisms. The predictions of the psychoacoustic models will be compared with results obtained for our experiments and from the literature. Our experimental research on normal listeners includes study of interaural intensity discrimination (with and without a roving level), the relations among various binaural unmasking), and adaptation to altered hearing. The experimental research on impaired listeners includes study of localization, lateralization, interaural discrimination, and detection of signals in noise. To the extent that this program is successful, it will provide a major improvement in our understanding of binaural interaction, and therefore, since binaural interaction plays a crucial role in auditory function, in our understanding of audition. Furthermore, insights that are gained concerning binaural interaction in impaired listeners will provide important background knowledge for later work on improved hearing aids and audiological evaluation procedures.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC000100-17
Application #
3215674
Study Section
Hearing Research Study Section (HAR)
Project Start
1988-04-01
Project End
1994-03-31
Budget Start
1991-04-01
Budget End
1992-03-31
Support Year
17
Fiscal Year
1991
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Boston University
Department
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
604483045
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02118
Best, Virginia; Mason, Christine R; Swaminathan, Jayaganesh et al. (2017) Use of a glimpsing model to understand the performance of listeners with and without hearing loss in spatialized speech mixtures. J Acoust Soc Am 141:81
Mi, Jing; Groll, Matti; Colburn, H Steven (2017) Comparison of a target-equalization-cancellation approach and a localization approach to source separation. J Acoust Soc Am 142:2933
Spencer, Nathaniel J; Hawley, Monica L; Colburn, H Steven (2016) Relating interaural difference sensitivities for several parameters measured in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. J Acoust Soc Am 140:1783
Mi, Jing; Colburn, H Steven (2016) A Binaural Grouping Model for Predicting Speech Intelligibility in Multitalker Environments. Trends Hear 20:
Dong, Junzi; Colburn, H Steven; Sen, Kamal (2016) Cortical Transformation of Spatial Processing for Solving the Cocktail Party Problem: A Computational Model(1,2,3). eNeuro 3:
Swaminathan, Jayaganesh; Mason, Christine R; Streeter, Timothy M et al. (2016) Role of Binaural Temporal Fine Structure and Envelope Cues in Cocktail-Party Listening. J Neurosci 36:8250-7
Chung, Yoojin; Delgutte, Bertrand; Colburn, H Steven (2015) Modeling binaural responses in the auditory brainstem to electric stimulation of the auditory nerve. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 16:135-58
Wang, Le; Devore, Sasha; Delgutte, Bertrand et al. (2014) Dual sensitivity of inferior colliculus neurons to ITD in the envelopes of high-frequency sounds: experimental and modeling study. J Neurophysiol 111:164-81
Wan, Rui; Durlach, Nathaniel I; Colburn, H Steven (2014) Application of a short-time version of the Equalization-Cancellation model to speech intelligibility experiments with speech maskers. J Acoust Soc Am 136:768-76
Kidd Jr, Gerald; Mason, Christine R; Streeter, Timothy et al. (2013) Perceiving sequential dependencies in auditory streams. J Acoust Soc Am 134:1215-31

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