Silver Medal for Cochlear Device
0th December
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Dr Robert Fearn, who did his physics PhD at UNSW, has been awarded the Silver Medal in a Young Inventors Awards competition run by the Far Eastern Economic Review, in association with Hewlett-Packard.
Rob’s PhD project, which was partly funded by Cochlear Ltd, the internationally successful Australian cochlea implant company, included developing methods of encoding sound signals so as to improve the perception of pitch by users of cochlear implants. Presently available processors work well for speech but are disappointing for music.
Researchers hope these devices will improve the ability of thousands of speakers of tonal languages such as Chinese and Thai to distinguish the tonal variations that can completely change the meaning of many spoken words. Users are also expected to enhance their ability to appreciate music.
Rob’s prize comprises $US5000 worth of Hewlett-Packard computer equipment. In addition, UNSW will receive a cash grant of $US5000 from the Far Eastern Economic Review. Rob and the other prize-winners will be flown to the US for a visit to Hewlett Packard’s laboratories in Palo Alto, California.
Rob said the research group, which includes Professor Joe Wolfe of UNSW's School of Physics, had been able to improve on the ability of present cochlear implants to transmit different tones by careful control of the rate at which the implant stimulated different regions of the cochlea.
"Present implants stimulate different parts of the cochlea at rates that do not relate appropriately to the frequency components present in the sound. This works well, for most users, for the frequencies that are most important in speech, but it does little to help the user differentiate pitches or appreciate harmony. The new processing strategy analyses complicated sounds and stimulates the 'right' place at the 'right' rate. This improves the accuracy with which users perceive pitch, and the quality of the sound they hear,” Rob said.
"To be able to appreciate music can greatly improve the quality of life for wearers, even if only because music is so widely present in our society, so we are pleased that Cochlear is pushing ahead with this development.”
After this episode Rob will return to the University of Cambridge, where he is working on mobile-telephone positioning systems.
Web links: Far Eastern Economics Review web site and UNSW Music Acoustics web page
Rob’s PhD project, which was partly funded by Cochlear Ltd, the internationally successful Australian cochlea implant company, included developing methods of encoding sound signals so as to improve the perception of pitch by users of cochlear implants. Presently available processors work well for speech but are disappointing for music.
Researchers hope these devices will improve the ability of thousands of speakers of tonal languages such as Chinese and Thai to distinguish the tonal variations that can completely change the meaning of many spoken words. Users are also expected to enhance their ability to appreciate music.
Rob’s prize comprises $US5000 worth of Hewlett-Packard computer equipment. In addition, UNSW will receive a cash grant of $US5000 from the Far Eastern Economic Review. Rob and the other prize-winners will be flown to the US for a visit to Hewlett Packard’s laboratories in Palo Alto, California.
Rob said the research group, which includes Professor Joe Wolfe of UNSW's School of Physics, had been able to improve on the ability of present cochlear implants to transmit different tones by careful control of the rate at which the implant stimulated different regions of the cochlea.
"Present implants stimulate different parts of the cochlea at rates that do not relate appropriately to the frequency components present in the sound. This works well, for most users, for the frequencies that are most important in speech, but it does little to help the user differentiate pitches or appreciate harmony. The new processing strategy analyses complicated sounds and stimulates the 'right' place at the 'right' rate. This improves the accuracy with which users perceive pitch, and the quality of the sound they hear,” Rob said.
"To be able to appreciate music can greatly improve the quality of life for wearers, even if only because music is so widely present in our society, so we are pleased that Cochlear is pushing ahead with this development.”
After this episode Rob will return to the University of Cambridge, where he is working on mobile-telephone positioning systems.
Web links: Far Eastern Economics Review web site and UNSW Music Acoustics web page
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