Further information about the individual laboratories is given below. The Audiology Research Laboratory examines auditory perception in humans with normal and impaired hearing. Work is conducted in the areas of psychoacoustics and speech communication, with an emphasis on aging. Current projects examine individual differences in the auditory abilities of adults and children. The past 30 years has seen tremendous advances in our understanding of cochlear physiology and biophysics.
Otoacoustic emissions provide a non-invasive window in to mammalian cochlear function.
Research in this laboratory at present focuses on using these emissions to study both the normal physiology and patho-physiology of the cochlea. Long-term research goals include development of better models for the clinical application of OAEs. The current focus is on the processing of vowels by listeners with normal or impaired hearing.