Announcing the 2016 RFP: Auditory Ecology and its contribution to Quality of Life, with Emphasis on the Individual
Since 2010 the hearing industry’s largest manufacturers have collaborated to sponsor a non-competitive, mutually agreed upon research agenda benefitting the hearing aid industry, its customers, and end users. The framework for this collaboration is the Hearing Industry Research Consortium (IRC).
The focus of this RFP is Auditory Ecology, a concept introduced by Gatehouse (1999) to describe the relationship between the acoustic environments experienced in everyday life and the perceptual demands of different individuals in these environments. Gatehouse found that individuals with more diverse auditory lifestyles had a stronger preference for more sophisticated signal processing strategies. Research that seeks to develop tools for characterizing auditory lifestyles and relates these to the effects of signal processing would be of benefit to the hearing-aid industry.
Applications are available on the Hearing IRC web site. The deadline for proposals is August 21, 2016, and decisions will be announced by December 31, 2016.