Speaker: Zachary Smith
Date: Friday 28 October 2016
Time: 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Location: Australian Hearing Hub, Level 4, NAL seminar room (enter via Australian Hearing Reception, Level 5)

Bio: Zachary Smith is Director of Coding Research at Cochlear Limited’s Research & Technology Labs, based in Denver, Colorado. He investigates basic auditory perception of electrical stimulation and develops new algorithms for better hearing with a cochlear implant. Dr. Smith received his PhD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Abstract: Listening in complex acoustic environments remains a challenge for recipients of cochlear implants. While bilateral implantation generally improves hearing performance with the addition of a second ear, evidence suggests that much of the benefit can be attributed to monaural effects and little usage of interaural time difference (ITD) cues. A temporally sparse coding strategy, FAST, was developed with the aims of 1) delivering more salient ITD cues and 2) increasing power efficiency. While initial results show success with achieving significantly improved ITD sensitivity and even binaural unmasking in some listeners with the FAST strategy, additional challenges with bilateral cochlear implants will be discussed in the context that multiple sources of binaural cue distortion need to be solved before the promise of true binaural hearing can be fully realized.

Who should come:  hearing, speech and language researchers and clinicians, cognitive scientists, psychologists, researchers in aging health and health care professionals.
Network: Learn from one another and see what collaboration opportunities are available.
Registration:  Entry is free and open to the public.  Please email louise.dodd@mq.edu.au to register by  2.00pm Thursday  27 October 2016