Research at the department of Clinical and Experimental Audiology is experimental
research of the human auditory system targeted to clinical applications in
diagnosis, therapy, or rehabilitation of the (impaired) auditory system.
A1. Otology
Otological projects focus on different aspects of middle ear surgery and implantable
hearing hearing devices: bone-anchored hearing aids (BAHA) and cochlear
implants (CI).
A2. Prevention of hearing-loss
We conduct several studies on the damaging effects of noise and ototoxic drugs.
Special focus is on the role of oto-acoustic emissions as an early indicator
for the sensitivity of the ear for hearing loss due to ototoxic agents or
noise.
A3. Auditory profile
The projects within this theme are related to the construction and validation of
psychophysical tests, that have been developed to understand the
supra-threshold behavior of the ear for different auditory tasks in
communication: e.g. speech perception, discrimination, spatial hearing. The
projects are related to loudness perception, auditory filtering, and (the
modelling of) speech perception.
A4. Rehabilitation
In the field of auditory rehabilitation the main emphasis is on fitting
techniques. In addition, there are several projects that evaluate the effects
of advanced signal processing in hearing aids, e.g. noise reduction and
directionality. Usually, we apply a mixture of laboratory tests (with a strict
control over the test conditions) and field trials (with a high level of
face-validity).
A5. Hearing at work
For hearing-impaired people that experience problems at work we develop new tests
and methods to make a detailed and well-structured analysis of the problems,
related to the match of (reduced) auditory capacities and auditory demands (at
work).