Ross Maddox receives NIH R00 Grant to study role of visual stimuli in hearing

September 9, 2016

rossProfessor Ross Maddox received an R00 grant from the National Institutes of Health for his project titled "Visual and Auditory Perceptual Factors Affecting Spatial Release from Masking." When listening in noisy environments, the brain uses differences in the locations of sound to improve understanding. The goal of this project is to investigate the effects of visual stimuli and eye position on the auditory system's ability to leverage these small location differences. It combines new behavioral measures, eye-tracking, and novel metrics of brain activity using electroencephalography so that we may better understand not only healthy listening, but also the difficulties faced by people who have normal hearing tests but still struggle to communicate in noisy settings.