Friday, April 18, 2025

Exceptional Speech Recognition Outcomes: Lessons from Three Case Studies

2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Lecture: 2:00pm | Henderson Room
Reception: 3:00pm | Hussey Room

Presented as the inaugural Irwin Pollack Lecture Series, this Department of Psychology event features Dr. David B. Pisoni, Distinguished Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Indiana University in Bloomington. It will be held as a Zoom watch party at the Michigan League.

Individual differences and variability in outcomes following cochlear implantation and auditory brain stem implantation remain significant unresolved problems. In this talk I will present the results of research we have carried out on three exceptional adults with significant hearing loss who received implants.

Two of the patients received cochlear implants; the third received an Auditory Brainstem Implant. Case-reports on these three individuals have provided us with a novel way of investigating the foundational information processing mechanisms underlying variability in outcomes. All three adults displayed exceptionally good speech recognition outcomes following implantation and were administered a novel test battery to measure their auditory, speech-language, and neurocognitive functioning to uncover their strengths, weaknesses, and milestones. 

Our results suggest that current clinical outcome measures used to assess the benefits following implantation should be expanded beyond conventional endpoint product measures to include more sensitive robust tests of speech recognition and neurocognitive functioning.

David B. Pisoni, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
Chancellor's Professor
Professor of Psychology & Cognitive Science, College of Arts & Sciences
Adjunct Professor of Linguistics, College of Arts & Sciences
Adjunct Professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
Indiana University - Bloomington
Faculty Profile

David B. Pisoni has taught undergraduate and graduate classes in Cognitive Psychology and carried out basic, applied and clinical research on speech perception and spoken language processing. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Otolaryngology—HNS at the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis where he carries out clinical research on hearing and cochlear implants in deaf children and adults.

Dr. Pisoni is one of the world’s leading research scientists in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Over his 55-year career at IU, he has carried out seminal research on human speech perception, spoken word recognition, language processing, and perceptual development in infants and children. He has also carried out pioneering research on several applied problems for the United States Air Force dealing with the perception of synthesized speech in cognitively demanding environments as well as the effects of noise on speech production.

For the last 33 years he has worked at the IU School of Medicine on numerous clinical problems associated with hearing impairment in deaf children and adults who have received cochlear implants. This program of research has had important clinical applications for understanding the enormous variability in speech and language outcomes following implantation. Throughout his career, Professor Pisoni has made significant contributions in basic, applied and clinical research in areas of speech and language processing.

As the founding Program Director of the Indiana University, NIDCD T32 training program in Speech, Hearing, and Sensory Communication, he was closely involved in training and mentoring undergraduates, graduate students, medical students, and postdoctoral research fellows who worked closely with him and other faculty in the research laboratories in Bloomington and Indianapolis.