Focus of Lab

Our lab focuses to study whether and how hearing loss affects the ability to use auditory cues for speech understanding differently in children and adults. The findings will inform researchers and clinicians which auditory cues are more accessible and important to individuals with hearing loss at a given age. Additionally, we seek approaches to compensate for the vital cues that are inaccessible to children and adults with hearing loss. The findings will provide insights for the design of sensory aids (e.g., hearing aids and cochlear implants) and auditory rehabilitation tools.

To fulfil our research goals, we conduct experiments in which participants perform listening tasks to identify target signals. Participants are individuals with normal hearing, or with hearing loss, or using cochlear implants. The signals involve natural speech, synthetic speech, and non-speech sounds presented in the presence or absence of various types of noise. With careful manipulations on physical properties (i.e., auditory cues) of signals and background noise, analysis of participants’ performance will provide answers to our research questions.

Personnel

• Yingjiu Nie, Ph.D., Director
• Husna Firdose, M.S., Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant (PhD dissertation)
• Nicole Kirk, B.S., Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant
• Becca Civil, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
• Joanna Goedeke, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
• Katherine Mueller, B.S., (AuD dissertation)
• Audrey Jones, (CSD undergraduate research assistant)

Alumni

• Sandra Tober, BS in CSD, (2023)
  • Honors Thesis:
• Lara Leggio, AuD, (2023)
  • Dissertation:  
• Bonnie Purtill, AuD (2022)
  • Dissertation: The relationship between quality of life outcomes and social hearing for cochlear implant recipients using the NCIQ and PIPSL
• Taylor Arbogast, AuD (2022)
  • Dissertation: Remote-Frequency Masking and Speech Perception in Adults
• Caroline Whillhite , BS in CSD (2022)
  • Honors Project
• Victoria (Tori) Whitney, AuD (2021)
  • Dissertation: Influence of musicianship, socioeconomic status, and working memory on children’s speech recognition in noise
• Harley Wheeler, AuD (2020)
  • Dissertation: Music and speech perception by prelingually-deafened young listeners with cochlear implants
• Diana Burke, BS in CSD (2019)
  • Honors Project (IRB faculty supervisor): Deaf Education: The Past, Present, and Future
• Leanne Gardner, AuD (2019)
  • Dissertation: Audiologists’ preferences in programming cochlear implants
• Victoria Andre, AuD (2019)
  • Dissertation: Music and speech perception in children using sung speech: Effects of neurocognitive factors
• Michael Morikawa, AuD (2018)
  • Dissertation: Melodic contour identification and speech recognition by school-aged children
• Alexandria Matz, AuD (2018)
  • Dissertation: The build-up of auditory stream segregation in adult cochlear implant users: Effect of differences in frequency and amplitude-modulation rate
• Sarah Troy, BS in CSD (2017) & Lindsey Seyfried, BS in CSD (2017)
  • Honors Project: Effects of age, timbre, pitch contour, and background noise on melodic contour identification and sentence recognition by children
• Alexandra Short, AuD (2017)
• Harley Wheeler, BS in CSD (2016)
  • Honors Thesis: Build-up effect of auditory stream segregation using amplitude-modulated narrowband noise
• Abigail Compton, BS in CSD (2016)
• Mary Shannon Carroll, BS in CSD (2015)
• Caleb Harrington, BS in CSD (2015)
• Mick Blackwell, BS in Engineering (2015)

Current Projects

* denotes student coauthor

Speech perception in noisy environments by children: Effects of peripheral, neurocognitive, and other factors

The factors of interest in the current effort are musical training and pertinent factors.

• Wheeler*, H.J., Hash, D., Moody-Antonio, S., & Nie, Y. (2022). Music and speech perception in prelingually-deafened young listeners with cochlear implants—A study using sung speech. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research: JSLHR, 65(10), 3951–3965. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00271

• Nie, Y., Galvin (Jr III), J., Morikawa*, M., Andre*, V., Wheeler*, H., and Fu, QJ. (2018). Music and speech perception in children using sung speech. Trends In Hearing, 22, 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216518766810.

The attentional effect on stream segregation in cochlear implant users

• Matz*, A., Nie, Y., & Wheeler*, H.J. (2022). Auditory stream segregation of amplitude-modulated narrowband noise in cochlear implant users and individuals with normal hearing. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 927854. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.927854 

• Wheeler*, H.J., Nie, Y (2016) Build-up Effect of Auditory Stream Segregation Using Amplitude-Modulated Narrowband Noise. In: Communication Sciences and Disorders, vol. Senior Honors  Harrisonburg: James Madison University. commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/216/

Audiologists’ clinical practices

• Audiologists’ practices in cochlear implant services
  • Leggio*, L., Nie, Y.,& Rout, A. (2022, May). What is the Reality of Counseling in Clinical Practice for Pediatric Cochlear Implant Audiologists?  Poster presentation at CI2022 DC Emerging Issues In Cochlear Implantation. Washington, D.C.
  • Browning*, L., Nie, Y., Rout, A., & Heiner, M. (2020). Audiologists’ preferences in programming cochlear implants: A preliminary report. Cochlear Implants International, 1–13. Advance online publication.
• Audiologists’ practices in audiometric testing and tinnitus services

Recent Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications

* denotes student coauthor

• Matz*, A., Nie, Y.,& Wheeler*, H.J. (2022). Auditory stream segregation of amplitude-modulated narrowband noise in cochlear implant users and individuals with normal hearing. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 927854. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.927854  
• Wheeler*, H.J., Hash, D., Moody-Antonio, S., & Nie, Y.,(2022). Music and speech perception in prelingually-deafened young listeners with cochlear implants—A study using sung speech. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research: JSLHR, 65(10), 3951–3965. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00271

• Nie, Y., Galvin (Jr III), J., Morikawa*, M., Andre*, V., Wheeler*, H., and Fu, QJ. (2018). Music and speech perception in children using sung speech. Trends In Hearing, 22, 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216518766810.
• Sladen, D. P., Nie, Y.,& Berg, K. (2018). Investigating speech recognition and listening effort with different device configurations in adult cochlear implant users. Cochlear Implants International, 19(3), 119-130. doi: 10.1080/14670100.2018.1424513

Opportunities to Participate in Our Research

If you are interested in participating in our studies, please send email to either  lapca@jmu.edu or auditory.jmu@gmail.com. If you meet the criteria, we will compensate your time for $10-12/hour and provide free parking during your participation. Currently, we are looking for the following two groups of volunteers to listen to some beeps, melodies, or utterances.

• Children between ages 7 and 18 with either normal hearing or cochlear implants.
• Adults (age 18 or older) using cochlear implants on one or both sides.