Plasticity
The spatial auditory system is constantly adapting (over time scales ranging from fractions of seconds to years) in order to maintain accurate auditory perception. In the short term, such plasticity allows a listener to adapt to abrupt changes such as changes in the acoustic environment. Over longer time scales, plasticity enables the listener to adapt to gross anatomical changes with development and aging as well as hearing loss. Understanding auditory plasticity is important for designing effective hearing aids and auditory displays as well as for understanding the basic computational processes governing spatial auditory perception. We are currently exploring short-term (i.e., on the order of fractions of seconds to minutes) auditory plasticity in order to elucidate the elegant ways in which auditory perception is recalibrated through experience.

Recent Papers on Plasticity

Kopco, N, V Best, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2007). “Sound localization with a preceding distractor,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121, 420-432.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG and T Streeter (2005). “Spatial auditory display: Commentary on Shinn-Cunningham et al., ICAD 2001,” ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 2(4), 426-429.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG, T Streeter, and J-F Gyss (2005). “Perceptual plasticity in spatial auditory displays,” ACM Transactions of Applied Perception, 2(4), 418-425.

Ueno, K, N Kopco, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2005). “Calibration of speech perception to room reverberation,” Proceedings of the Forum Acusticum, 29 August - 2 September 2005.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG (2001). "Models of plasticity in spatial auditory processing," Audiology and Neuro-otology, 6(4), 187-191.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG, T Streeter, and J-F Gyss (2001). “Perceptual plasticity in spatial auditory displays,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, Helsinki, Finland, 29 July-1 Aug 2001, 181-184.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG (2000). “Adapting to remapped auditory localization cues: A decision-theory model.” Perception and Psychophysics, 62(1), 33-47.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG (2000). “Learning reverberation: Considerations for spatial auditory displays,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, Atlanta, GA, 2-5 April 2000, 126-134.

Guenther, FG, F Husain, M Cohen, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (1999). “Effect of categorization and discrimination training on auditory perceptual space,” J Acoust Soc Am, 106, 2900-2912.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG, NI Durlach, and RM Held (1998). “Adapting to supernormal auditory localization cues II: Constraints on adaptation of mean response,” J Acoust Soc Am, 103, 3667-3676.

Shinn-Cunningham, BG, NI Durlach, and RM Held (1998). “Adapting to supernormal auditory localization cues I: Bias and resolution,” J Acoust Soc Am, 103, 3656-3666.