Medical Acoustics Seminar
The “Medical Acoustics Seminar” will concentrate on research methods involving behavioral observations on human subjects. Students will gain knowledge on how to conduct and critique research studies.
For example, how were the equal loudness contours measured? How reliable are the published head-related transfer functions (HRTF)?
Students are encouraged to identify a topic of interest. Building upon the preliminary idea, the students will learn different techniques in designing proper experiments and the latest trends in conducting and reporting statistical analysis.
- Formulation of a research question
- The paradigm of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST)
- Finding independent and dependent variables
- Requirements for causal relation
- Considerations in the design of experiments
- Reliability and validity
- Sampling from population and power analysis
- Randomized experiments
- Issue of generalization
- Research ethics
- Data analysis and reporting
- Descriptive statistics
- Basic statistical models (e.g., regression, t-test, analysis of variance)
- Best practice in interpretation of statistical results
The seminar will be split in two parts:
For the first part, there will be a lecture series (4-5 lectures) to cover the above topics.
For the second part, students will gain hands-on experience by working on an actual research topic with a supervisor for the rest of the semester. As a final deliverable, the students will be asked to present the findings using the techniques learned from the lecture series and from individual mentorship with your supervisors.
Potential topics for consideration include but not limited to the following:
- Human sound localization (real scenarios or virtual acoustics scenarios)
- Psychoacoustics
- Auditory cognition in complex acoustic scenes
- 3D sound and virtual reality
- Hearing aids (i.e., technical systems) and listening with hearing aids
- Human voice and auditory system
- Ultrasound