My name is Bert Schlauch and I am a Professor in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). My lab addresses a broad range of questions in basic and applied hearing research, but one underlying principle permeates everything I do: I involve students in my research. Many former students - undergraduate and graduate - have published scientific papers with me. Here is a link to those studies.
Below is a summary of some current projects we are working on. Follow the links to learn more and to listen to some sample sounds
Research Projects
Improving the precision of audiological behavioral measures: My students' and my work in this area has improved diagnostic tests for identifying persons with tumors and ones faking a hearing loss. My current work is refining pure tone threshold measures used to identify persons showing damage from exposure to intense sounds.
Auditory Attention: We seldom listen to sounds in isolation. The brain does a wonderful job of segregating sounds that we attend to from other, competing sounds. This work explores the acoustic cues that the brain uses to accomplish this segregation (Click here for more details).
Sounds played backwards: It's an urban legend that if you play one of the Beatles's songs backwards it will reveal a lyric that Paul is dead. Ignoring that hoax, everyone knows that speech or music played backwards has a very different timbre or tone color than sounds played in the normal way. I quantified some of these effects and discovered that the duration of a common class of sounds played backwards is perceived to be twice as long as the same sound played in the normal fashion. This finding has implications for composers and for the study of timbre (Listen to the sounds here).
Speech Prosody: Prosody is the feature of speech that describes its melody and rhythm. Most English speakers think of prosody as the feature that enables speakers to convey emotion or, for instance, to signal whether a question is being asked (e.g., a rising pitch at the end of the utterance). Our studies have found that natural prosody helps listeners understand speech better in background noise (Click Here to Learn More).
Teaching: I routinely offer five different classes.
Hearing Science (SLHS 3306). This is an undergraduate class that covers physiological and psychological acoustics.
Signals and Systems in Audiology (SLHS 8803). This course covers advanced topics in acoustics and calibration of audiometers. In the image below, some of my students are assessing the calibration of the bone conduction oscillator using an artificial mastoid.
Audiological Assessment I and II (SLHS 5801 and SLHS 8801):These two semester long courses cover the diagnostic battery. The first course includes pure tone audiometry, speech measures, and immittance. The second course covers ABR (including Don's recent advances for tumor identification and diagnosis of Meniere's disease), ASSR, Electrocochleaography, and otoacoustic emissions. In the image below, a student is practicing masking technique using a computer simulation. The simulated patient responds to presentations just like a real client.
Hearing Science Foundations of Audiology (SLHS 8805): My background in hearing science and audiology give me a unique perspective that enables me to make critical links between hearing science and audiological clinical practice; hearing science is shown to be an important foundation for evaluating clinical protocols. As part of this class, students create a poster that presents an analysis of current scientific literature. The posters illustrate links students find between hearing science and Audiology for a narrow topic in an area of their interest. These posters are presented (even and odd numbered posters presented simultaneously during alternate 1/2-hour periods) during the final exam period in a public forum that is attended by other students and faculty. This group presentation, with multiple posters being presented simultaneously to interested observers, is similar to the format of a national convention (without the stress).