The long-term goal of this project is to identify the factors that contribute to the development of hearing in complex acoustic environments. The proposed experiments will characterize child-adult differences in susceptibility to interference from competing background sounds and will identify developmental effects in the ability to use spectral and temporal cues to improve hearing in noise. Recent studies have shown that children are more susceptible than adults to interference from competing sounds. Although the mechanisms that underlie this increased susceptibility are poorly understood, central auditory processes such as sound source determination and selective attention appear to play a major role. Little is currently known, however, about how and when these processes develop. The proposed work has two specific aims.
Aim 1 will provide information that can be used to determine the course of development for susceptibility to interference from remote frequency background sounds.
Aim 2 will focus on identifying acoustic cues that children rely on to detect target signals in the presence of noise. The results of the proposed studies will enhance our understanding of the factors that limit children's ability to hear in noisy environments. These studies could result in more successful speech and language outcomes for children with hearing loss and could lead to the development of strategies that improve the quality of the acoustic signal in the classroom.
| Bonino, Angela Yarnell; Leibold, Lori J; Buss, Emily (2013) Release from perceptual masking for children and adults: benefit of a carrier phrase. Ear Hear 34:3-14 |
| Leibold, Lori J; Neff, Donna L (2011) Masking by a remote-frequency noise band in children and adults. Ear Hear 32:663-6 |
| Leibold, Lori J; Hitchens, Jack J; Buss, Emily et al. (2010) Excitation-based and informational masking of a tonal signal in a four-tone masker. J Acoust Soc Am 127:2441-50 |
| Leibold, Lori J; Bonino, Angela Yarnell (2009) Release from informational masking in children: effect of multiple signal bursts. J Acoust Soc Am 125:2200-8 |
| Bonino, Angela Yarnell; Leibold, Lori J (2008) The effect of signal-temporal uncertainty on detection in bursts of noise or a random-frequency complex. J Acoust Soc Am 124:EL321-7 |
| Leibold, Lori J; Jesteadt, Walt (2007) Use of perceptual weights to test a model of loudness summation. J Acoust Soc Am 122:EL69 |
