You have probably noticed that it’s harder to understand other people’s speech in noisy environments, such as at a party or a restaurant, even though you may have no hearing difficulties otherwise. You may have also noticed that understanding others in these challenging listening situations gets more difficult as you age. When we try to understand speech, we use various acoustic cues to help us. For example, we may try to listen for the timing or pitch of different speech sounds to figure out what was said. But how does our ability to use these acoustic cues change over time? What might affect our speech perception in challenging listening environments?
At the Auditory Processing and Perception Lab, we investigate the developmental and age-related processes around hearing difficulty and speech perception. These processes change over time as we age, and our lab studies how these changes manifest in people with normal and impaired hearing. Specifically, we are interested in how people’s ability to perceive certain acoustic cues, such as the timing of speech sounds, changes over time.
Want to learn more? Email us at APPL@buffalo.edu, or give us a call at 716-829-5308. We are located in Cary Hall at the University at Buffalo, South Campus.
Lab Director: Mishaela DiNino, Ph.D. (dinino@buffalo.edu)
