HEARING & SPEECH SCIENCES
HESP News
Finding ‘Fido’: Studying Canine Name Recognition in Noisy Environments RESEARCHERS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HEARING AND SPEECH SCIENCES are studying whether dogs can still recognize and respond to their names in situations where there is background noise, or in which multiple people are talking at once. The researchers, led by department chair Professor Rochelle Newman, are interested in dogs because they are often used as an animal comparison to human infants.
UMD Awarded $8 million to Combat Hearing Loss in Older Americans THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING awarded more than $8 million to a team of multidisciplinary UMD researchers to develop an innovative approach for addressing hearing loss and communication challenges that affect millions of older Americans. The researchers will examine processes at the neural level that cause auditory and speech perception difficulties with aging, and hope to determine whether the brain can be effectively “rewired” through auditory and cognitive training to overcome these hearing and speech obstacles. Project 1 of this effort will examine whether neurons in the auditory cortex of the brain can be reorganized through specific training exercises. Project 2 will assess the effectiveness of focused strategies in helping people process acoustic signals, including rapid speech. Project 3 will combine cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques to measure the brain’s ability to form new neural connections following auditory and cognitive training.
Both dogs and young children are frequently exposed to language in multi-talker or noisy environments. The auditory processing systems of the brain in both species evolved in what were presumably far quieter ambient environments than present-day settings. “Understanding the limitations of dogs’ ability to understand commands in real-world settings will have implications for how best to train these animals as service dogs,” Newman said. The researchers are also exploring whether dogs can recognize their name when spoken by a stranger, even in quiet.
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BSOS Online Learn more at dogs.umd.edu
“This research has the potential to transform the nature of rehabilitative services for millions of older people with communication problems,” said Professor Sandra Gordon-Salant from the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, who serves as the project’s lead investigator.
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BSOS Online Read more at go.umd.edu/hespproject
22 | College of Behavioral and Social Sciences: Be the Solution
UMPD Corporal Matt Suthard and study participant Jimbo