Hearing Research

The “Cocktail Party” effect can be described as the ability to interpret sound coming from a single source while spectrally masked by background noise. Our brain utilise the binaural cues available in the signal to enhance the signal to noise ratio enabling us to understand what a person wishes to listen to. Binaural hearing is the mechanism developed in the auditory pathway during infancy which allows us to listen to speech masked in background noise. Binaural hearing is basically the ability to combine the information from both ears to detect the location of a sound source or to distinguish a sound from background noise. It may be impaired in people who have suffered from prolonged hearing loss as children, for example, due to otitis media. Studies have shown that indigenous children are five times more likely to be diagnosed with Otitis media (OM) than non- Indigenous children. As hearing is associated with the brain and the auditory cortex, it is important to understand the brain responses as well when studying the hearing loss and related disabilities. Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), the brain’s response to auditory stimuli, may be used as an objective measure of hearing and auditory processing.

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