Student Theses

This table lists all completed doctoral theses in the HST-SHBT program.  Each entry includes the author, title, year completed, and supervisor(s).  Whenever possible, a link is provided to the thesis abstract.  Entries are organized by broad research areas:

Yoko listens to a speech signal that she has synthesized on the computer.

Auditory Mechanics, Auditory Neuroscience (Peripheral or Central), Auditory Psychophysics, Hearing Aids/Cochlear Implants, Speech Perception and Production, Machine Processing of Speech, Language Processing, Voice Disorders/Laryngeal Physiology, Vestibular

Auditory Mechanics

R. Ghaffari The functional role of the mammalian tectorial membrane in cochlear mechanics 2008 D.M. Freeman
C. Bergevin Comparative approaches to otoacoustic emissions: Towards an understanding of why the ear emits sound 2007 C.A. Shera and D.M. Freeman
J.E. Songer Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence: Auditory Mechanisms 2006 J.J. Rosowski
R. Kalluri Interpreting otoacoustic emissions in humans: Evidence for two generating mechanisms 2006 C.A. Shera
A.J. Miller Using otoacoustic emissions to measure the transmission matrix of the middle ear (M.Sc.) 2006 C.A. Shera
K. Masaki Material Properties of the Tectorial Membrane are Altered by Mutations that Cause Hearing Loss 2006 D.M. Freeman
A.J. Graves The effect of smooth muscle antagonists on the sound-induced motion of the tympanic membrane (M.Sc.) 2005 J.J. Rosowski
J. Ryu Resolution Improvement in Optical Microscopy by Use of Multi-Beam Interferometric Illumination 2003 D.M. Freeman
A.J. Aranyosi Measuring Sound-Induced Motions of the Alligator Lizard Cochlea 2002 D.M. Freeman
K.D. Karavitaki   Measurements and models of electrically-evoked motion in the gerbil organ of Corti 2002 D. Mountain
S.E. Voss   Effect of Tympanic Membrane Perforations on Sound Transmission in Human Ears   1998 J.J. Rosowski and W.T. Peake

Auditory Neuroscience, Peripheral

A. Dreyer Likelihood and bayesian signal processing methods for the analysis of auditory neural and behavioral data 2008 E.N. Brown
F.A. Thiers The outer spiral network and its innervation by the olivocochlear system 2008 J.B. Nadol
W. Lilaonitkul (EECS) Frequency specificity of the ipsilateral, contralateral and binaural medial olivocochlear responses in humans 2008 J.J. Guinan
K.N. Darrow Role of the Lateral Olivocochlear Efferent System in Hearing: Selective Lesioning Studies 2006 M.C. Liberman
D. O'Gorman Dynamical mechanisms of neural firing irregularity and modulation sensitivity with applications to cochlear implants 2006 C.A. Shera and J. White
L. Cedolin Neural representations of pitch: role of peripheral frequency selectivity 2006 B. Delgutte
H. Cheng Auditory-Nerve Fiber Responses to Amplitude Modulated Tones  and Multi-Tonal Stimuli (M.Sc.) 2005 J.J. Guinan
S.F. Kuo Characterization of KCTD12 / PFET1, an intronless gene with predominant fetal expression 2005 C.C. Morton
B.C. Backus Using Stimulus-Frequency-Otoacoustic-Emissions to Study Basic Properties of the Human Medial Olivocochlear Reflex 2005 J.J. Guinan
A.M. Taberner Using Knockout Mice to Study the Molecular Mechanisms that Shape Auditory Nerve Responses 2005 M.C. Liberman
A.J. Groff Modulation of Cochlear Afferent Response by the Lateral Olivocochlear System: Activation via Electrical Stimulation of the Inferior Colliculus 2003 M.C. Liberman
D. Ronan   Sodium Entry Pathways in Isolated Goldfish Hair Cells 2003 E.A. Mroz
R.B. MacDonald   Gentamicin and FL1-43 enter sensory hair cells through mechanosensory transduction channel    2002 D.P. Corey
M.G. Heinz   Neural Basis for the Psychophysical Significance of the Cochlear Amplifier   2000 L.E. Carney
P.K. Oberoi   In Vivo Physiology of Gap Junctions between Supporting Cells in the Organ of Corti   1999 J.C. Adams
K.M. Stankovic   Efferent Effects on Auditory Nerve Responses to Tones   1998 J.J. Guinan

Auditory Neuroscience, Central

J.J. Yoo fMRI studies of effects of hearing status on audio-visual speech perception 2006 F. Guenther
T.P. Santos Tone-Evoked Fos Labeling in the Central Auditory Pathway: Effects of Stimulus Level and Auditory Fear Conditioning 2006 M.C. Brown
C. Seshagiri Response Properties of Neighboring Neurons in the Auditory Midbrain 2006 B. Delgutte
Z.M. Smith Binaural interactions in the auditory midbrain with bilateral electric stimulation of the cochlea 2006 B. Delgutte
I. Sigalovsky   Structural and Functional Distinctions between Auditory Centers Revealed with MRI in Living Humans    2004 J.R. Melcher
C.C. Lane   Signal detection in the auditory midbrain: Neural correlates and mechanisms of spatial release from masking    2003 B. Delgutte
M. Harms   Functional Magnetic resonance Imaging of Repeated Stimuli in the Human Auditory System 2002 J.R. Melcher
M.F. McKinney   Neural Correlates of Pitch and Roughness: Toward the Neural Code for Melody and Harmony   2001 B. Delgutte
J.R. Iversen   Tonotopy and Plasticity at Multiple Levels of the Auditory Pathway   2001 M.C. Brown
S. Kalluri   Cellular Characteristics of Cochlear Nucleus Onset Units Studied with Mathematical Models   2000 B. Delgutte
T. Talavage   Functional Magnetic resonance Imaging of the Frequency Organization of Human Auditory Cortex   1998 B.R. Rosen and J.R. Melcher

Auditory Psychophysics

A. KC Lee Influence of spatial cues on the identification and the localization of objects in the auditory foreground 2007 B.G. Shinn-Cunningham
D.E. Shub Monaural perception under dichotic conditions 2006 H.S. Colburn
J.G.W. Bernstein Pitch perception and harmonic resolvability in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners 2005 A.J. Oxenham
P.S. Rosengard Relationship between Measures Related to the Cochlear Active Mechanism and Speech Reception Thresholds in Backgrounds with and without Spectral and/or Temporal Fluctuations 2004 L.D. Braida and A.J. Oxenham

Hearing Aids, Cochlear Implants, Assistive Devices

D.M. Whiten Electro-anatomical models of the cochlear implant 2006 D.K. Eddington
B. Poon Sound localization and interaural time sensitivity with bilateral cochlear implants 2006 H.S. Colburn and D.K. Eddington
M.K. Qin Role of F0 in Speech Reception in the Presence of Interference: Simulating Aspects of Cochlear-Implant Processing 2004 A.J. Oxenham
R.L. Goldsworthy Noise Reduction Algorithms and Performance Metrics for Improving Speech Reception by Cochlear-Implant Users 2004 J.E. Greenberg
L.M. Litvak   Towards a Better Speech Processor for Cochlear Implants: Auditory Nerve Responses to High-Rate Electrical Pulse trains   2002 B. Delgutte and D.K. Eddington
C. Long   Bilateral Cochlear Implants: Fundamental Psychophysics   2000 D.K. Eddington

Speech Perception and Production

S.Y. Zhao The stop-like modification of /δ/: A case study in the analysis and handling of speech variation 2007 K.N. Stevens
A. Okobi Acoustic and Spectral Correlates of Lexical Stress 2006 K.N. Stevens
S. Lulich The Role of Lower Airway Resonances in Defining Vowel Feature Contrasts
2006 K.N. Stevens
X. Mou Nasal codas in Standard Chinese - a study in the framework of the distinctive feature theory 2006 K.N. Stevens
V. Villacorta Speech Sensorimotor Adaptation to Acoustic Perturbations in the First Formant of Vowels and its Relation to Perception 2005 J. Perkell
A.K. Imbrie Acoustical Study of the Development of Stop Consonants in Children 2005 K.N. Stevens
L. Dilley Tone Interval Theory 2004 K.N. Stevens
J. Slifka   Respiratory Constraints on Speech Production at Prosodic Boundaries 2000 K.N. Stevens

Machine Processing of Speech

N. Malyska Analysis of Nonmodal Glottal Event Patterns with Application to Automatic Speaker Recognition 2007 T.F. Quatieri
J. Sroka   Consonant Recognition by Humans and Machines 1998  L.D. Braida

Language processing

D.T. Wehner Phonological and Semantic Influences on Auditory Word Perception in Children with and without Reading Impairments using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and Electroencephalography (EEG) 2007 M. Mody
E. Chen    Characteristics of Syntactic Processing: An Examination Utilizing Behavioral and fMRI Techniques 2003 D. Caplan, E. Gibson, and S. Shattuck-Hufnagel

Voice Disorders, Laryngeal Physiology

G. Meltzner Perceptual and Acoustic Impacts of Aberrant Properties of Electrolaryngeal Speech 2003 R.E. Hillmann and K.N. Stevens
E. Goldstein Prosthetic Voice Controlled by Muscle Electromyographic Signals 2003 R.E. Hillmann and G.B. Stanley
H. Cheyne   Estimating Glottal Voicing Source Characteristics by Measuring and Modeling the Acceleration of the Skin on the Neck   2001 R.E. Hillmann and K.N. Stevens

Vestibular System

P. Dimitri   Application of Multivariate Statistics to Vestibular Test Interpretation   2000 C. Wall