So, here are a few ‘final results’ from the data we’ve collected over the last year or so. If you’ve been a research participant here at the Bionics Institute over the last two years, the result of your listening and button presses will be reflected in one of the little dots on a graph in one the papers below! At the moment we’re looking for more volunteers to participate in our research – if you’re interested, get in touch by emailing music@bionicsinstitute.org.

Overall, our research so far has focussed on the ability to hear multiple ‘streams’ of sound. We believe that, in addition to accurately hearing pitch, loudness, and other low-level auditory cues, the enjoyment of music is largely affected by the ability to hear the different streams in music. This could take the form of different instruments playing in an ensemble, or even of different lines of melody played by the same instrument. In normal hearing, the ability to hear these different streams is based on different types of acoustic differences between the streams (loudness, pitch, instrument timbre etc). The brain can then use these cues provided by the ears and auditory system to disentangle the different streams of sound. When using a cochlear implant or hearing aid, however, the basic perception of these cues is changed, and so therefore is the perception of different ‘streams.’

Our research so far has been based on understanding how different hearing devices effect these auditory ‘streaming cues.’ Our first published study found that visual cues also affected the ability to hear separate streams of sound. When a visual cue was provided, most participants found it easier to hear two mixed-up streams of sounds. In addition, we found that no special training was needed in order to interpret the visual cues (although musically-trained people were better at the tasks overall). This research was published in ‘PLoS ONE’, an international general science journal, and can be downloaded free of charge at this address (look for the ‘PDF’ link on the right hand side):

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011297

Our next paper was also focussed on stream segregation, and found that visual cues were also able to make the streaming task easier for people using cochlear implants. In future, it may thus be possible to devise ways to make music more enjoyable using visual cues, either in a live setting, pre-recorded music with pre-made visual aids. Listening to music live, where visual cues can be provided by the musicians themselves, may also be more enjoyable than listening to the radio or CDs at home. This research was also published in PLoS ONE, and can be downloaded here:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029327

We have also been analysing further data from the same experiment that compares the different types of acoustic cues against each other, to determine which cues have the greatest effect, especially for people using cochlear implants and hearing aids, though that data is not published yet. We just received notification that the paper we wrote has been accepted into a journal called ‘Music Perception’ though, so that should be available soon.

We are also just about to publish the results from a large concert that was held last February at the Arts Centre Melbourne (more info here: http://musicalbionics.wordpress.com/interiordesign/) . In that event, six new works were composed especially for CI users, and survey data was collected after each of the six pieces. So far, the results are very promising – there were big differences between the appreciation of each piece, and between each survey item, but on most of the survey items there was no difference between the responses of the CI users and normally-hearing listeners in the audience. So although some pieces were liked more than others, both normally-hearing and CI users had similar responses!

In other projects, Dr Tom Francart, a visiting scientist from Belgium, is also developing a system specifically designed for a cochlear implant combined with a hearing aid in the other ear, to improve sound quality, and improve the ability to localise sound sources. The system also improves loudness relations between different sounds, to make soft sounds better audible and loud sounds more comfortable. Tom is working with Cochlear to implement the results of his research in real devices. Examples of other results from research at the Institute and partners are the SmartSound Beam function to reduce background noise and ADRO.

Mohammad Marefaand, a  new PhD student in our team, is also working on improving music perception for people using a hearing aid and cochlear implant together. His approach will be to discover the essential elements of music that are necessary to transmit to hearing devices in order to best enjoy music. Watch this space!

PS, here is our new sound treatment in the booth!  This is where some of the testing will be held, looks cool hey!

Irish accents AND foghorns, all in one place!  This delightful program from RTE radio in Ireland documents the disappearance of the sound of foghorns from around the Irish coastline. The best bit is when the foghorn afficianados put together a fund-raising night called “blast from the past”… Ho ho ho.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/the-curious-ear-doconone-foghorns.html

A soundmap of the Parvia River in Portugal (I’m really interested in making one of these soundmaps one day!) It would be good to be able to see a picture of where each sound was recorded I think.

http://www.mapize.com/soundmap_paiva/

Music made from recordings of cargo ships bumping and grinding on the River Waal in the Netherlands, from Esther Venrooy

There’s a sample here: http://www.entracte.co.uk/project/esther-venrooy-e104/

http://www.esthervenrooy.net/music/releases/

And if I were in the UK, I’d be going along to one of these gigs at Tryptic, a whole festival of Eliane Radigue in London.

The festival: http://soundandmusic.org/projects/triptych-music-eliane-radigue

In this video she mentions how the kinds of sounds she uses inn her work can act as a kind of mental mirror… so true.  The venues look amazing too.

First of all, the Cave late nightclub venue this year is the KELVIN CLUB. The Kelvin Club is presumably named after Lord Kelvin, who devised a reference-free scale for temperature or heat energy based on previous ideas that there could be a hypothetical “absolute zero” temperature, at which the vibrations of molecules which give an object heat energy stop. There’s a review on the Kelvin Club from 2009 on a site called “Mel: Hot or Not,” which deems the Kelvin Club to be “Hot.” Anyway, I’ve always been a little bit fascinated by the Kelvin Club – it has a big shiny painted door deep down a dingy alley off Russel Street, and is one of those members-only clubs that I imagine are full of stuffed couches and paintings with huge gold-leafed frames. And this year, it’s going to be full of free music!

Secondly, there are going to be evening sound-walks around Melbourne hosted by the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology. If you’ve never been on a soundwalk, I highly recommend going, especially if you have a hearing impairment or use a hearing aid or cochlear implant! I don’t have a hearing impairment, but I’ve found that going on sound-walks, especially when they’re guided by someone who knows some good locations, can really change how you listen to the world of sound around you, and can re-define what you consider to be ‘noise.’ It’s also a perfect opportunity to be taken around on a free tour of your city

Sound walks (click picture for details):

http://www.melbournejazz.com/v2011/webpages/event.php?cID=4

http://funnyoldlife.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/bouncing-into-a-hearing-life/

Especially interesting (and relevant if you’re using a CI) is the part about the mapping process, and adjusting sounds to “comfortable” levels rather than painful levels.

Secondly there is an interesting snippet about some research being done in the UK where it seems they are looking into how pitch perception can affect speech intelligibility scores.

Always interesting reading!  Now back to PhD work.  Bye till Monday!

Fingers Crossed!

Famous last words.

So many surveys...

Faced with the daunting task of ploughing through over 400 feedback surveys, I recalled that sage advice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” So, beginning at the beginning, over the course of a few weeks, I slowly made my way through the box of surveys from the first concert of the evening, tackling along the way such obstacles as ‘unique’ handwriting (to put it kindly), and the dreaded ‘ambiguously circled number’. Having reached the halfway point, it seemed an appropriate place to take a break and give an overview on what we’ve found so far.

I’ve enjoyed reading the comments along the way: whether positive, negative, confused, angry or delighted, it’s exciting that the majority of the audience seems to have been able to hear enough of the music to be able to form some opinion about it.  Some interesting trends have emerged from the data so far.  When comparing data from cochlear implant users and normal hearing listeners, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that their responses tend to mirror each other—indeed, for some of the pieces, the responses almost overlay one another, suggesting there was little difference in the way the two groups of listeners interpreted and enjoyed the pieces of music.

This is encouraging because one of the main goals is to create a meaningful dialogue between hearing-impaired and normal hearing listeners by introducing new musical ideas accessible to both groups.  Whatever their reaction, good or bad, it means they’re listening to—and, more importantly, hearing—the same piece of music.

I thought I’d end with some nice comments I came across today, from two cochlear implant users:

“I am very keen to take up music again. Listening to the concert has shown me that I should experiment with what instruments I decide to pick up. This has made me realise there is more to music than strictly classical – which is what I grew up with!”

“Thank you so much for all your time and dedication and for all your work to make the most of our hearing. I am very touched by it all and today was fascinating and vastly enjoyable.”

First box done!

Photos courtesy of Hamish

Overall the response has been quite positive. We had about 700 people turn up on the night (in two shows, one at 5:30 and one at 8:00, and one lecture at 7:00). We have had reviews in The Age (click here and here), and we even made the 7 o’clock news that night (click here)!

We have had quite a bit of feedback, some overwhelmingly positive, some bewildered, and some negative. Even the negative feedback is interesting though, as so far it has all been a question of taste, rather than of being able to “hear” the work. It has certainly got hearing impaired and normal-hearing people talking, which was one of the main aims of the project.

In the meantime, we have two large boxes of feedback forms to get though. These forms contain answers to a standard set of questions we asked about each piece, and will ultimately help us decide what kinds of musical sounds are well and not-so-well transmitted by the cochlear implant. A new audiology student has just embarked on the task of entering all the data and corralling it into shape, and we will then work with Kate Stevens at the University of Western Sydney and Emery Schubert at the University of NSW to analyse and interpret the data.   We’ll try and keep you posted about how that data looks as we start to look at it.

Here are some pictures of the night (taken by Anne-Sophie Poirier):

Hi from the Arts Centre! We’ve been here since 8 bumping in the show tonight. Two shows, 5:30 and 8pm, with a lecture explaining the processes behind the show at 7 pm. Come along, there are still tickets left but they’re selling fast!

Here’s Jeremy putting the final touches on his lecture slides…

1) BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW! There are two shows next Sunday, and the early one has actually selling quite fast over the last few days. Tickets are $25/$15 concession, and are available from the Arts Centre website (http://www.theartscentre.com.au/whats-on/event.aspx?id=2403) or by calling the Arts Centre on 1800 182 183.

2) Listening to brand new, hot of the press music is FUN, and a privilege! I’ve been listening to various sketches, snippets and samples of the music the composers in the project have been coming up with, and it’s an amazing experience. Only a very few other people have ever hear the work, and had a chance to follow the thoughts that arise from listening. One of the pieces has even got a bit stuck in my head!
Here’s Natasha Anderson in her studio playing back a demo version of her work. This one will be a mix of instrumental and spatialised electro-acoustic playback.

3) The program is almost finalised, and will be printed on Monday. Each of the composers has written a page on their work – it’s fascinating reading, and we hope that we might be able to expand it into a short book format or some other kind of publication after the concert. The project is interesting from a musicological point of view as well as from a hearing perspective, it would be interesting to bring these two fields together somehow, and really consider the nature of hearing itself and how that affects music composition. That’s for another time though.

4) Ben Harper has just updated his website, with audio links available to some of the studies that have led up to his final work. He gives a good history of his involvement in the project as well, and how his thinking has changed throughout.

5) Listen in to Delivery on RRR from 5:10 on Sunday afternoon for an interview with James Rushford and I. No idea what we’ll be talking about. Moon phases perhaps. RRR is 102.7 FM in Melbourne. Call us and ask questions!

6) We’re hopefully gong to be sitting in on one of the Speak Percussion rehearsals next week. That should be fascinating too. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some pictures (camera might be too loud or distracting though, not sure if I’ll be able to)!

Might sound best with headphones. And sorry about all the traffic noise, it’s quite near a busy road, and also and handling noise/footsteps, as I was being attacked by angry birds and had to keep dodging them…

And here is where the pond is (it looks very brown in this satellite image!)
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