Wednesday, May 6th at 12pm in Shevlin 110
Chris Plack is visiting from the the UK and will present a talk on the very topical issue of 'hidden hearing loss':
Hidden Hearing Loss due to Noise Exposure and Ageing
Dramatic results from animal experiments suggest that moderate noise exposure can cause substantial permanent damage to the auditory nerve (cochlear neuropathy) that is not detectable by standard hearing tests. In humans, such damage has been described as “hidden hearing loss,” and may be a cause of speech perception difficulties and tinnitus. In the talk I will describe the rationale and research plan for our project that aims to determine the physiological bases and perceptual consequences of hidden hearing loss in humans. I will present pilot data based on the “frequency-following response,” an electrophysiological measure of neural temporal coding. Animal experiments also suggest that ageing is a cause of cochlear neuropathy, in the absence of significant noise exposure. This may contribute to the temporal coding deficits experienced by the elderly. I will present electrophysiological and behavioral data from our group suggesting that aging impacts both on the neural coding of pitch, and on the perception of musical harmony.
