Cole Blevins
Pronouns: He / Him
Research Mentor(s): Renee Banakis Hartl
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Otolaryngology / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Renee Banakis-Hartl, Cole Blevins
Session: Session 6: 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm
Poster: 4
Abstract
Single-sided deafness (SSD) impairs communication and day-to-day life by its effect on binaural tasks, including localization and speech-in-noise understanding. The ears work in conjunction with head movements in order to provide the optimal angle to assess the direction of a stimulus. Limited studies have shown that patients with SSD over-compensate with head movements during monaural hearing – however, these head movements may not optimize the signal-to-noise ratio once binaural hearing is restored. This study aims to investigate the adaptive behavior employed by individuals with SSD in challenging real-world environments. The objective of this study is to understand and characterize the impact of SSD on individuals in complex environments based on their compensatory head movements and their ability to localize sound and understand speech in noisy environments. Subjects will undergo a combined speech-in-noise and localization task which assesses an individual’s ability to hear sentences presented in different levels of background noise as well as their ability to localize the sound source. The outcome measures include head movement dynamics (onset head movement delay, head displacement, total response time), speech performance in percentage, and localization accuracy. This study works to improve the understanding of behavioral responses during binaural listening tasks in individuals with SSD. This testing will allow us to formally characterize reflective binaural localization behavior and evaluate device benefits, which could potentially inform future device technology improvements. Ultimately, we hope to gain a better understanding of localization in individuals with SSD while paving the way for future research to optimize the performance of cochlear implants.
