Spatial Listening, Hearing Loss, and Hearing Aids

Normal listeners have a remarkable ability to localize sounds because the brain can analyze the slight differences between the sound waves arriving at the two ears. These different cues are less important when the listener knows where a talker is located, but they are extremely important when speech comes from an unexpected location, as often happens in everyday situations. During the proposed internship with Oticon, Canada and the Oticon Research Centre in Denmark, the intern will extend his doctoral research to find out how people with hearing loss can use these cues with no hearing aid and with hearing aids differing in the type of digital signal processing that is used to control the output of the hearing aids. Because hearing loss directly affects approximately 10% of all Canadians, and 30% of Canadians over the age of 60, there are many individuals who may potentially benefit from improved hearing technologies.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller

Student:

Gurjit Singh

Partner:

Oticon Canada

Discipline:

Psychology

Sector:

Medical devices

University:

University of Toronto