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. My former students are currently employed in diverse positions as clinical audiologists, researchers in industry, and university faculty.
Consider applying for our graduate programs. Interested in an academic career or in a job that involves clinical research? We currently have funding available for qualified applicants to our Ph.D. program (next round, December, 2019). The Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science also has fellowships to study hearing. Contact me to learn more ([email protected])
Research Projects
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.
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. A publication in the American Journal of Audiology(with Edward Carney) presents evidence that several highly cited published studies significantly overestimate the percentage of teens who have damaged hearing from listening to loud sounds. The story was picked up by Minnesota Public Radio.
Heekyung Han, a research audiologist, enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Fall, 2013,Dr. Aparna Rao and I presented the results of a study at the American Auditory Society in March 2014 that is now published in the American Journal of Audiology. We measured the accuracy of non-native English speakers and hearing impaired audiologists to administer and score speech tests with and without visual information. Visual cues helped both groups but the difference for the hearing impaired audiologists was substantial. For persons who are unable to achieve the desired accuracy, even with visual cues, we present alternative solutions. We also have a paper that will be published later this year that compares 4 choice word recognition to an open-set condition (where the person repeats what they heard with no choices in front of them). The study found that it requires more than 1200 presentations of the 4-choice condition to equal the precision of the open-set condition. This has implications for pediatric patients, some persons with aphasia, and for conditions where the patient is unable to respond clearly with a vocal response.
We are beginning a project to teach monolingual English speaking audiologists to score Spanish word lists administered during a hearing test. Audiologists and audiology students will learn and receive feedback using audio-video recordings that are designed for this purpose. It is important that audiologists consider that the USA is a multicultural and multilingual country and that hearing services need to address issues in culture and language. We are basing this program on the successful results of an active training program for Korean that was completed in my laboratory.
One challenge that arises is how to quantify the level of speech for audiological testing and for creating standardized tests. I worked on a project with Emily Chu, a junior at Wayzata High School as part of the Honors Mentor Connection Program. The results (Download 2019 Chu AAS Poster 5.0) were presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Auditory Society.
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 three different classes.
Hearing Science (SLHS 3306). This is an undergraduate class that covers physiological and psychological acoustics. Click here to read about a project completed by an Honors student enrolled in my class. She examined the output levels of music CDs to learn if reports we had read about loudness wars were correct and what the consequences may be for risk of hearing loss for persons listening to personal stereo devices, such as IPods. Another undergraduate honors project measured the effectiveness of earglasses (click here to read about earglasses). This course is currently taught by Dr. Evelyn Davies Venn.
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.
Behavioral Audiological Assessment (SLHS 5801):This semester-long course covers most of the the diagnostic battery of tests, including pure tone audiometry, masking, speech measures, and immittance. This course also covers methods of dealing with persons who fake a hearing loss, the topic of funding awarded by the US Navy to my lab. 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 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).
Photography
One of my hobbies is photography so when Dr. Mark Bee (professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior) asked me to join him with my camera on a field trip to collect frogs for his hearing research, I eagerly agreed. The fruits of our labor paid off. Mark's article was the feature article in the journal Hearing Research, and my photo represented his work on the cover of the March 2012 issue. The photo is shown below.
Here is another photo I captured at a parade in Northeast Minneapolis. This photo was selected for a juried exhibition at the Minnesota Center for Photography as one of 63 contemporary photographs from 36 artists.
Below is a photo of eclipse watchers on campus.