Les Beaux-midis : The role of kurtosis in predictiong complex noise-induced hearing loss

Conférencier  : Wei Qiu
Senior Research Scientist
Auditory Research Laboratories
State University of New York at Plattsburgh

Abstract: A number of animal experiments and epidemiologic studies in humans have demonstrated that current noise standards (e.g. ISO 1999) underestimated hearing trauma by complex noise. While energy and exposure duration are necessary metrics they are not sufficient to evaluate the hearing hazard from complex noise exposure. The temporal distribution of energy is an important factor in evaluating noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Kurtosis incorporates in a single metric all the temporal variables known to affect hearing (i.e., peak, inter-peak interval and transient duration histogram) that makes kurtosis as one of the candidate metrics. In this presentation we will firstly introduce some interesting results from kurtosis-related animal (chinchilla) experiments and human studies conducted in our lab. Methods of how to calculate and use kurtosis metric in evaluating complex NIHL will be introduced in detail. Our results show that both kurtosis and energy are necessary to evaluate the hazard posed to hearing by a complex noise exposure.

Short bio: Dr. Wei Qiu received Ph.D. degree in 1994 and join Auditory research Laboratories at SUNY Plattsburgh as a Senior Research Scientist in 1998. Dr. Qiu has considerable experience in brainstem testing procedures and signal processing for the communicative sciences. The major topic of his current research involves the role of the kurtosis metric in evaluating hearing trauma from complex noise exposures.

Pour joindre la visioconférence le 14 septembre / to join the videoconferencing September 14th