SPACE Lab

Welcome to the SPACE Lab! now on Mastodon as @alexlfrancis@fediscience.org

Directed by Dr. Alexander L. Francis, Ph.D., research in the SPACE Lab centers around the short- and long-term consequences of the cognitive challenges posed by both the presence of unwanted sound (noise) and difficulty with perceiving sound (hearing impairment). We employ psychophysiological and behavioral measures to investigate cognitive and affective responses to the challenges posed by environmental noise and loss of hearing acuity, especially in older adults. The central thesis of our work is that challenges to listening, whether due to unwanted sound or to difficulties assessing the auditory environment, increase demand on central processing mechanisms such as attention and working memory and induce negative affective responses with both short- and long-term impact on health and well-being. Results of this work will serve to better guide research and development of effective policy, workplace design, and clinical interventions for individuals with hearing impairment, unusual sensitivity to noise, and/or who work or live in noisy environments.

Latest Papers:

• Francis, A.L. (2022). Adding noise is a confounded nuisance. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 152, 1375. Published online Sept. 2, 2022. DOI: 10.1121/10.0013874 Link
• Love, J., Sung, W., & Francis, A. L. (2021). Psychophysiological responses to potentially annoying heating, ventilation, and air conditioning noise during mentally demanding work. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 150(4), 3149-3163. DOI: 10.1121/10.0006383 Link
• Xu, D., Newell, M., & Francis, A.L. (2021).  Fall-related injuries mediate the relationship between self-reported hearing loss and mortality in middle-aged and older adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Medical Sciences, 76(9), e213–e220.
  DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glab123 Link
• Francis, A. L., Bent, T., Schumaker, J., Love, J., & Silbert, N. (2021). Listener characteristics differentially affect self-reported and physiological measures of effort associated with two challenging listening conditions. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 83(4), 1818-1841.DOI: 10.3758/s13414-020-02195-9 Link

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