Cognitive hearing science

The Linnaeus Centre HEAD (Research on Hearing and Deafness) is an interdisciplinary research programme on hearing impairments and deafness.

The ten-year grant 2008-2018 allows for the introduction of a new scientific field: cognitive hearing science, which studies the physiological and cognitive basis for hearing and the interaction with auditory signal processing in hearing enhancement devices. The Centre is funded by the Swedish Research Council to the tune of SEK 50 million.

One central subject for research is how hearing enhancement devices affect cognitive development in hearing impaired children; another is how language comprehension in elderly hearing impaired people is affected when their cognitive skills decline. Tinnitus, dyslexia, deaf-blindness and other hearing related functional impairments will also be studied.

Researchers from the Swedish Institute for Disability Research at Linköping and Örebro universities participate in HEAD.