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Head and Scientist III, 213-353-7038 |
 functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). |
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Mission The Department's research mission is to understand speech perception and language comprehension from the perspectives of brain, behavior, and clinical applications. Its clinical mission is to develop assessment and training methods to ameliorate the effects of hearing loss. |
 Electrophysiological source current density reconstruction. |
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Approach to Research Speech communication is a complex system. Effects of hearing loss on individual's abilities to communicate effectively with speech are the result of diverse facts about this complex system. For example, individual differences in the timing and developmental course of hearing impairment, visual speech perception ability, the language environment, biologically and experientially influenced perceptual and cognitive characteristics, and social-cultural context are likely candidates for determining communication ability under conditions of hearing impairment. Recent technological developments in brain imaging and the analysis of event-related brain potentials, in combination with behavioral research methods, offer powerful methodologies for studying relationships between structure, function, and dynamics in the normal and the impaired speech communication system. The Department has undertaken an integrative research strategy involving these new imaging technologies in combination with behavioral methods to investigate questions about speech perception and spoken word recognition in individuals with normal hearing and with hearing loss. |
 Pointlight speech stimulus.  Optical marker based synthetic visual speech. |
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