PROJECTS

Cochlear implants allow deaf people to recover some form of hearing and understand speech, but current devices are limited, and the consequences of these limitations have not been fully explored. For example, there is a growing consensus that hearing loss interacts with cognitive systems. Yet, relatively little is known about the cognitive burden of CI users. The present project is currently developing a robust tool to measure the cognitive effort induced by the CI, using a combination of behavioral scores, pupillometry, and subjective appreciation. It hypothesizes the poor representation of voice pitch may stand as one important cause for the increased effort.

[This work received funding from the Quebec government in collaboration with Oticon Canada, as well as funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.]

This project aims to investigate vocal production by CI users, in response to feedback alteration of their voice pitch. The originality of this approach is to shift the usual focus of CI research from perception to production, using devices that attempt to provide finer pitch cues. Indeed, the characteristics that make voice pitch more salient may not necessarily be the same characteristics that are relevant to the speech motor planning areas of the brain. It also has repercussions on music research, since it concerns the ability of CI users to regulate their voice pitch while singing.

[This work received funding from the Quebec government in collaboration with Med-El Canada.]

An ongoing stream of research projects is focused on delineating how normally-hearing (NH) adults deal with the most difficult acoustic environments. This is generally referred to as the cocktail-party problem, and we are continuously trying to figure out how the brain resolves it. This research has been instrumental in examining the role of pitch and attention in crowded places when many voices compete for processing. This line of work relies primarily on speech intelligibility tests under a wide range of auditory masking conditions. For example, we study the detrimental effect of reverberation, or the potentially beneficial effect of musicianship, for different forms of masking release.

[This work is funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Quebec – Nature et Technologies.]

Although understanding spoken language feels effortless, real-world scenarios such as noisy environments or listening in a second language can be disruptive. Previous research has demonstrated that monolinguals and bilinguals have different levels of ease in perceiving speech-in-noise, which is especially relevant in a bilingual city like Montreal.  However, research to date has failed to systematically investigate potential interactions between the target language and competing background speech. We hypothesize that bilinguals will have a specific pattern of performance when listening to their dominant or second language in different competing speech environments. The proposed basic research with bilingual adults will be foundational to future planned work with special populations, including bilingual infants and children, and bilingual individuals with hearing impairments.

[This work is supported by a pilot grant from the Centre for Research in Brain, Language, and Music.]

Misophonia is a form of decreased tolerance to specific sounds, in which individuals appear to be extremely sensitive to selective sounds that trigger a negative emotional state. This project explores the acoustic features of trigger sounds and the prevalence of this disorder in the general population. Finally, it aims to develop a protocol to reduce the association between trigger sounds and the emotion-related networks in the brain in an attempt to develop effective treatments.

This work is supported by a grant from the REAM foundation.

This project proposes to create an evidence-based and welcoming approach to voice training for transgender and gender-diverse people by performing studies that measure the role of the acoustic content in vocal output along with visual influences from the speaker’s body size and shape into listeners’ perception of gender and ratings of well-being and vocal effort in the speakers/singers. The end goal is to create training programs and resources for voice professionals who wish to work with the transgender and gender-diverse communities.

This work is supported by a grant from the Society for Music Perception and Cognition.

For children who were born deaf, cochlear implants have proven incredibly useful: many acquire spoken language relatively normally and enter mainstream schools. But academic achievements differ widely between children, and we are trying to understand why by looking at their brain. In this project, we recruit children with normal hearing or implanted at different ages, who exhibit age-appropriate or delays in language and literacy outcomes. Along with audiological assessments and a full battery of behavioral tests, we record their cortical activity using (sequentially) EEG and fNIRS in response to visual processing, auditory processing, somatosensory/motor processing, multi-sensory processing, and resting state networks and connectivity during emotional video clips. This research highlights evidence for maladaptive cross-modal plasticity caused by a delayed age at implantation. The end goal is to help children with cochlear implants reach their full potential in terms of cognitive and language development.

[This work is supported by the Oberkotter Foundation.]

People with hearing loss and more particularly users of cochlear implant have difficulties recognizing emotions in speech. A series of experiments aims to discover why. The ultimate goal is to improve the design of speech processors inherent to auditory prostheses so that affective cues in the voice could be better transmitted.