David Gooler

My research has focused on investigating neurophysiological and perceptual processes for encoding complex sounds including echolocation in bats, call recognition in frogs, and perception of speech in noise by human listeners. Common to these areas of research is the recognition that we seldom listen to sounds in isolation, but as part of a sequence of sounds and often under noisy conditions. Further, as people age or for those who are hard-of-hearing, difficulties understanding speech can develop and extend beyond poor hearing sensitivity. Changes in the brain may alter processing of temporal information in speech and how sounds from both ears are integrated in the brain. Our recent electrophysiological studies in human listeners have shown differences in the brain’s ability to act as a sensory gate to incoming sounds over short time intervals in clinical subpopulations. Current collaborations focus on enhancing auditory evoked response measures to better study binaural processing. Applications of this research may lead to optimized binaural hearing in cochlear implant users and a means of investigating the brain’s ability to integrate information from both ears in the presence of traumatic brain injury.