“How Our Eyes Influence What We Hear”- SLHS Research Featured in Psychology Today
(12/9/2020, Psychology Today)
A new study by Research Associate Professor Virginia Best suggests that in “cocktail party” listening situations, people’s eye position steers their visual attention—which, in turn, guides their auditory attention.
“Our primary motivation was an intuition that eye position may be especially critical within these [cocktail party] situations, where there is substantial energetic and informational masking,” Best said in a news release. “A secondary motivation was our interest in visually guided beamforming, where the eyes are used to steer a highly directional hearing aid.”