Hearing & Multimodal Laboratory

Department of Psychology at the University of South Alabama

Dr. Michael S. Gordon, director (see faculty webpage)

Our lab uses an inter-disciplinary approach to investigate how information is structured by the environment and sensory system to support perception. To understand these issues we analyze how auditory and visual stimuli are mediated to a perceiver in real environments. Perception in the real world is a messy prospect, but potentially there is information available to a perceiver in the way an auditory or visual signal is structured by the environment, and in the way the perceiver is able to interact with that signal.

Projects of the lab include:

• Audiovisual speech & emotion
• Audiovisual integration and aging
• Echolocation & auditory space perception
• Cognitive & perceptual changes in older adults
• Motion detection and Time-to-Arrival
• Perceptual detection and performance in football
• Sensory mechanisms of hearing

These studies of ecological and sensory interactions with the perceptual system draw on a broad base of paradigms to contribute to an integrated line of research. The influences of environment, sensory ability, neurophysiology and cognition are all highly salient to the understanding of perceptual mechanisms for detection and integration.

To learn more about our laboratory and experience some of the stimuli please visit the Research & Demonstrations.