Hearing Sciences, Scottish Section
Hearing Sciences – Scottish Section is a thriving research group dedicated to understanding and alleviating hearing difficulties, based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The section’s research programme includes a broad portfolio of projects seeking to (a) understand real-life auditory behaviour, (b) improve methods of assessing hearing loss and intervention benefit, and (c) propose innovative solutions for hearing problems.
We study these questions using a variety of different techniques, from qualitative interviews to neural recordings (EEG). Our special strength is in linking hearing loss to behaviours in real-life situations, especially where verbal communication is challenging.
As an outpost of the University of Nottingham, we collaborate with the Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre – Hearing Theme, and as a research group located in Glasgow, we also have strong links with the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Strathclyde and NHS Scotland.
Our Research
Our team is made up of around fifteen people including senior researchers, postdoctorate fellows, PhD students and support and operations staff. Our research leads are Dr Lauren V. Hadley, Prof. Graham Naylor (Section director) and Dr William Whitmer.
We regularly work with industry partners from major hearing aid manufacturers such as Demant, WS Audiology, GN Hearing and Sonova. We also have academic collaborations at local, national and international levels.
We have a core MRC-funded research programme, 'Understanding and alleviating hearing disability: A cognitive-behavioural model of miscommunication in everyday conversation’. Other projects include:
- 'Hearing in a social context: Understanding predictive mechanisms in communicative interaction,’ 2021-2024, UKRI Future Leader Fellowship of Dr Hadley.
- ‘Socioemotional well-being as an individual factor in the assessment and amelioration of hearing loss’, 2022-2024, Medical Research Foundation Fellowship of Dr Jack Holman.
- ‘Incorporating active strategies in speech testing to predict communication performance’, 2021-2023, Medical Research Foundation Fellowship of Dr Tim Beechey.
- ‘Auditory adaptation, hearing and social communication in autism’, 2023-2026, Nottingham Research Fellowship of Dr Tim Beechey.
- Partner in the ESRC-funded project ‘Predicting language under difficult conditions: Effects of cognitive load, noise, and hearing impairment’, 2023-2026.
- ‘Development of an operationalised definition of conversational success in small groups’, 2020-2023, funded by WS Audiology A/S.
- ‘Does The Method Matter? Investigating perceptual differences in hearing aid self-adjustment methods’, 2021-2024, funded by GN Hearing A/S.
- ‘Conversation behaviour in daily life: the effects of situation, hearing loss, and hearing-aid use’, 2022-2025, funded by ESRC and Sonova AG.
- ‘Emotional responses in daily-life listening situations for people with a hearing loss, and emotional adaptation after a first hearing-aid fitting’, 2020-2022, funded by the Hearing Industry Research Consortium.
Our Facilities
Our state-of-the-art facilities include two large chambers with loudspeaker arrays, allowing emulating diverse acoustical environments, as well as motion-tracking systems to measure body movement, eye-tracking systems to measure gaze and pupil responses, and EEG systems to measure neural activity. We also have clinical-grade audiological measurement facilities, and a large pool of pre-consented participants. We have a history of expertise in auditory psychophysics and in self-report outcome measures, now including smartphone-based Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methodology.
Get Involved
Would you like to take part in our research? We are recruiting people of all hearing abilities to take part in some of our future online studies and surveys. Please get in touch with us at hs-glasgow@nottingham.ac.uk.
Contact Us
Level 3, New Lister Building
Glasgow Royal Infirmary
16 Alexandra Parade
Glasgow
United Kingdom
G31 2ER
(0141) 242 9665 – Reception
hs-glasgow@nottingham.ac.uk
New Lister Building