Research Center

The Heuser Hearing Research Center (HHRC) is located on the third floor of the Hearing Services building on the Heuser Hearing Institute campus. Currently there are two laboratories in the Center operated by three University of Louisville faculty. Other researchers include graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. In addition, staff of the Hearing Services Center and the Louisville Deaf Oral School, now the Heuser Hearing & Language Academy, frequently contribute to and participate in the research.

Ongoing research in the two laboratories includes:

Auditory Attention
(Laboratory of Drs. Fred Wightman and Doris Kistler) - the strategies which we use to attend to a desired sound source (e.g., someone talking) and to ignore other distracting sounds. Areas of current research in the Wightman-Kistler laboratory include:

1. Development of auditory attention in children
2. Auditory attention in children and adults who use cochlear implants
3. Use of visual cues to aid auditory attention - A/V integration
4. Use of spatial cues to aid auditory attention

Spatial Hearing
(Laboratory of Dr. Pavel Zahorik) - aspects of human hearing related to the perception of the spatial positions of sound sources in the listening environment. Areas of current research in the Zahorik lab related to spatial hearing include:

1. Directional localization.
2. Distance localization.
3. Hearing in reverberant environments.
4. Spatial hearing with a cochlear implant.

Auditory Perceptual Learning
(Laboratory of Drs. Wightman and Kistler)
Research in this area is still under development, and is motivated by a number of findings reported in the recent hearing sciences literature. First, there is strong evidence that success with a cochlear implant requires some structured training, for many adults and for all children. In other words, people have to be trained in order to listen "properly" with an implant. Second, successful use of visual and/or spatial cues to aid auditory selective attention appears to require training, either to lipread in the case of the visual cues, or to localize, in the case of spatial cues. Localization with a cochlear implant poses a special challenge in that an individual must be trained to use the pinna diffraction cues which cause relatively subtle changes in sound quality as the location of a sound source is moved. Results from both normally hearing adults and adults with unilateral deafness argue strongly that these cues can be learned. The research seeks to reveal, for both visual and spatial cues, what kind of training and how much is necessary to benefit adults and children who use cochlear implants.
 
For more information regarding The Heuser Hearing Institute email us at info@thehearinginstitute.org