Project Grant R01DC023478

The University of Connecticut was awarded a $333,935 Project Grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), under the federal Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders grant program (CFDA 93.173), effective September 1, 2025 through August 31, 2030.

The grant supports research to understand the neural mechanisms underlying human speech recognition in the presence of natural environmental noises, such as competing talkers, wind, rain, and street noise. The study leverages biologically grounded computational models of sound textures to manipulate and control the background acoustic structure, in order to assess how different elements of the acoustic environment interfere with speech comprehension. Key objectives include: 1) behavioral testing to determine which acoustic features in natural backgrounds disrupt phonetic, lexical, and segmental aspects of speech recognition, 2) EEG studies to map neural responses in the auditory system during speech comprehension in noise, and 3) developing biologically inspired computational models of speech recognition tolerant to environmental noise.