Friday, January 24, 2025 12pm to 1pm
Callier FLASH Seminar in Speech, Language and Hearing
Title: The Effect of Auditory Training on Listening Effort With Cochlear Implant Simulations
Speaker: Seeon Kim, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Associate, UT Dallas
The limited spectral and temporal resolution of cochlear implants (CIs) negatively affects speech recognition of CI users in background noise and leads to increased listening effort. Listening effort is the allocation of cognitive resources to overcome the obstacles in listening tasks and also involves the mo-tivational and emotional responses to the task demands in daily life. Although targeted auditory training has been shown to improve CI users’ speech recognition, the effect of auditory training on listening effort in CI users is still unknown. This study investigates whether phoneme-recognition training may improve the accuracy while reducing the listening effort of sentence recognition in noise with CI simulation. Listening effort was measured using three different measures: (1) dual-task paradigm, (2) pupil diameter, and (3) self-report. While phoneme recognition training in adaptive background noise improved sentence recognition in noise, listening effort remained unchanged after training. In contrast, listening effort tends to be reduced for those who have not undergone auditory training. This result suggests that phoneme recognition training may have motivated listeners to stay focused on the challenging task of sentence recognition in noise.
Seeon Kim is a new Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Callier Center, working in Dr. Linda Thibodeau’s Hearing Health laboratory. She earned her PhD in Speech and Hearing Science from Arizona State University under the mentorship of Dr. Xin Luo. Prior to her PhD, she worked as an audiologist at a hearing aid center in South Korea, primarily serving elderly patients with hearing loss. She holds her bachelor’s degrees in Electronic Engineering and English Literature from Soongsil University in South Korea, and a master’s degree in Audiology from Hallym University of Graduate Studies, South Korea. Her research interests include hearing devices such as cochlear implants and hearing aids, auditory training and innovative approaches to evaluating device outcomes.
The talk on Friday, January 24, 2025 at 12:00pm - 1pm will be a hybrid talk, in-person in CD A229 and also on MS Teams.
MS Teams link
Meeting ID: 230 730 485 959
Passcode: M8hF9HN9
Callier Center Dallas 1966 Inwood Rd Dallas, TX 75235
Undergraduate Students, Prospective Students, Graduate Students, International Students
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