Welcome to the SAFE Lab! We are located in the Faculty of Health Sciences in the National Centre for Audiology at the University of Western Ontario. Our research examines the human auditory system and the role that it plays in speech production. When we talk, the sound of our own voice is important in the accurate maintenance of speech. We study this by changing speech sounds in real-time and observing the influence on talking. We also study the auditory system by recording the sounds produced by the ear (otoacoustic emissions) or the electrical activity generated by the brain (auditory electrophysiology) in response to sound. Read on for some examples or browse the publication abstracts below! Feel free to contact Dr. Purcell if you have any questions. People associated with the lab past and present can be visited here!
Thesis based Masters and PhD degrees can be pursued in the SAFE Lab through the Hearing Science field in the Health & Rehabilitation Sciences Graduate Program or through the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. These research areas will be of interest to students from psychology, neuroscience, communication sciences, physiology, medical biophysics, life sciences, health sciences, or other related areas.
One of our interests is physiological measurements of auditory function such as otoacoustic emissions and steady-state auditory evoked potentials. We are interested in developing new ways of using the objective measurements that we have available, as well as relating these to performance in perceptual tasks. For example, we have developed methods of estimating auditory processing delays, as well as tools for evaluating the auditory brainstem's neural connections between ears. As well, we have studied how an individual's ability to detect amplitude modulation perceptually is related to their brain's ability to follow the modulated signal as measured electrophysiologically.