Past Events Category: Hearing and Donuts

Lukas Suveg, Au.D.
Waisman Center
March 13, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Spatial separation of target and competing speech can improve the accuracy with which listeners, including those with bilateral cochlear implants, identify the target speech. Even if measurement of this benefit were implemented in routine clinical practice, behavioral measures like percent correct scores are not designed to provide insight into the momentary accumulation of perceptual salience of auditory stimuli that informs the ultimate judgment regarding the target speech. In this study, we adapted the “visual world paradigm,” wherein eye-gaze was monitored as participants selected, on a computer monitor, the image representing a spoken target stimulus. This novel study was designed primarily to investigate the effect of target-masker spatial configuration on certainty of target identity. Eye gaze behaviors unfolding over the time course of target determination were measured along with time to decision and percent correct, to test the hypothesis that spatial separation of a target and masker increases the certainty with which targets are identified. In addition to results from 20 typically hearing listeners, I will share preliminary data from the initial bilateral cochlear implant recipients enrolled in this ongoing study.

Robert Fettiplace, Ph.D.
Waisman Center
March 6, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Sound transduction in cochlear hair cells arises by activation of mechanotransducer channels composed primarily of transmembrane channel-like protein 1 (TMC1). We have found that mutations in Tmc1 cause hair cell death and deafness in mice by postnatal day 21. However, mechano-transduction is normal in the first postnatal week. Our goal is to understand what triggers apoptosis, death of the hair cells, and deafness in these mouse mutants. I shall show that in all Tmc1 mutants studied, there was a reduction in the density of the PMCA2 Ca2+ pump in the outer hair cell stereocilia. This leads to an increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ which deleteriously affects mitochondrial function. The results imply a connection between stereociliary PMCA2 density, hair cell apoptosis and deafness.

Bobby Gibbs, Ph.D.
Waisman Center
February 20, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Speech contains a signature unique to each talker which is found in the co-occurring changes in frequency and amplitude over time known as spectrotemporal modulations. In a previous study, older listeners with hearing impairment relied on a similar range of spectrotemporal modulations as their peers with typical hearing to "glimpse" target speech in a competing talker background. However, hearing impairment led to greater susceptibility to interference in non-target modulations associated with the competing talker. My lab has generated preliminary data that explores how simulations of altered neural encoding through a cochlear implant affects the utility of spectrotemporal modulations in a competing talker paradigm (coordinate-response measure sentences filtered into different modulation regions or “spectrotemporal bubbles”). The hypothesis is that broadened auditory filters due to increased spread of excitation (manipulated via the vocoder simulation filter slope) leads to poorer utilization of target modulations and increased susceptibility to interference from non-target modulations. Further, we are exploring how spectrotemporal modulation sensitivity in quiet predicts which modulations lead to glimpsing or interference in noise. This work will inform modulation-based source separation algorithms tailored to the unique listening strategies that occur with altered neural encoding.

Matt Banks, Ph.D.
Waisman Center
February 13, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

How consciousness emerges from the complex of interconnected networks in the brain is one of great unsolved mysteries in science. We seek to gain insight into this question by studying what changes in the brain during loss, recovery, and altered states of consciousness in neurosurgical patients implanted with intracranial electrodes while being evaluated for seizure resection surgery. We identify signatures of these changes by identifying common changes in brain activity and connectivity during sleep and anesthesia, two conditions in which consciousness is lost reversibly. In addition to elucidating the neural correlates of consciousness, our work is relevant to monitoring depth of anesthesia, and in the diagnosis, management and prognosis of pathological states of consciousness including central sleep disorders, delirium, vegetative or minimally conscious states, and coma.

Gunnar Quass
Waisman Center
January 30, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

TBA

Erik Jorgensen, Au.D, Ph.D., CCC-A
Waisman Center
January 23, 2026 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Hearing loss is robustly associated with increased risks of loneliness and depression. The mechanisms underlying this association are unknown. Whether interventions such as hearing aids reduce risk of negative psychosocial health outcomes is equivocal, but the research is limited. In this talk, we outline a possible hearing-related behavior framework for understanding how hearing loss may lead to negative psychosocial health outcomes. Rooted in auditory ecology, we posit that hearing loss leads to negative psychosocial health outcomes due to mismatches between perceptual abilities and auditory demands of listeners, such that hearing loss differentially effects psychosocial health dependent on soundscapes listeners experience. We then provide empirical evidence testing this theory. Our results provide support for our hypothesized pathway from hearing loss to depression; however, the results also suggest that hearing aid use may change daily life behaviors in fundamental ways that call into question traditional philosophies of hearing aid benefit and outcome.

Aditi Gargeshwari, PhD
Waisman Center
December 12, 2025 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Processing of Binaural Cues: Psychophysical and Neural Perspectives

Lisette LeMerise
Waisman Center
December 5, 2025 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Assessing Auditory Cortical Region Differences Between Individuals with Down Syndrome and Healthy Controls with Quantitative Neuroimaging

Yuyu Zeng (Rustle), Ph.D.
Waisman Center
November 21, 2025 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Speech sensorimotor adaptation—adjusting articulation to counter altered auditory feedback—unfolds in a predictable direction. This talk demonstrates how that property can be leveraged to improve second-language vowel learning. Native Spanish speakers produced English /ɪ/ (“ship”) under altered auditory feedback that shifted perceived feedback toward or away from /i/ (“sheep”). Both groups adapted as expected, but only the toward-/i/ group produced more clearly differentiated vowels after the feedback was removed. Perceptual identification of the /i/–/ɪ/ contrast also became sharper across groups. These results show that leveraging the predictable direction of sensorimotor adaptation can refine non-native vowel production and perception.

Christian Stilp, PhD
Waisman Center
November 7, 2025 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Learn more about the Hearing and Donuts Seminar Series

Objects and events in the sensory environment are never perceived in isolation, but relative to surrounding stimuli. This is especially true in speech perception, where acoustic characteristics of surrounding sounds have powerful contextual influences on perception of speech sounds. In this talk, I will discuss two classic effects of surrounding spectral context on auditory perception: spectral contrast effects and auditory enhancement effects. I will show that speech sound categorization is exquisitely sensitive to both of these effects, which are related to each other at the individual differences level. I will review the neural mechanisms thought to underlie these effects and introduce data that seek to clarify where these effects occur in the auditory system. Finally, I will examine how these context effects shape speech perception for listeners with hearing impairment, investigating their interrelationship at the individual differences level as well. Together, this work points to promising future directions that may ultimately improve speech-perception-in-context by listeners with impaired hearing.