The only picture of me I had to hand.

Trevor Agus

Postal address: Equipe Audition, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75230 Paris cedex 05, France
Contact: trevor.agus@ens.fr

Research Interests

I am currently researching how we learn to recognise sounds. I hope to uncover the processes by which we can identify sounds and categories of sounds with such apparent ease. So far, I have shown that listeners can learn individual examples of steady noise (these all sound just like a hiss initially) and I have measured the length of time it takes people to recognise different musical instruments. I use both psychoacoustical techniques (measuring listeners' ability to accurately report aspects the sounds) and computational techniques (comparing the psychoacoustical results with the results of computational models). This work is carried out with Daniel Pressnitzer, and is part of a collaboration with Simon Thorpe.  

Previously, I researched elderly listeners' ability to understand one talker while ignoring a competing talker. Some of their difficulty can be explained by the mere acoustics of the competing speech ("energetic masking") but an additional component ("informational masking") seems to be related to the extra challenge of distinguishing the two talkers. Energetic masking is generally associated with processes in the ear; informational masking is generally associated with peripheral or central processes in the brain. It was expected that elderly listeners would be more susceptible to informational masking, since elderly listeners often complain of difficulty understanding one talker in the presence of another. But the results showed that young and elderly listeners were equally susceptible to informational masking; their differences in performance seem best explained by energetic-masking effects. This research was carred out at the Institute of Hearing Research Scottish Section under the supervision of Michael Akeroyd, in conjunction with the University of Strathclyde Psychology department.

For a copy of my PhD thesis, please contact me at trevor.agus@ens.fr.

Publications

Agus, T.R., and Akeroyd, M.A. (2009). Informational masking in young and elderly listeners for speech masked by simultaneous speech and noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society America 126(4), 1926-1940. DOI: 10.1121/1.3205403

Agus, T.R., and Akeroyd, M.A. (2009). An analysis of the masking of speech by competing speech using self-report data (L). Journal of the Acoustical Society America 125(1), 23-26. DOI: 10.1121/1.3025915

Conference proceedings

Agus, T.R., Beauvais M., Thorpe, S.J. & Pressnitzer, D. (2009) The implicit learning of noise: Behavioral data and computations models. International Symposium on Hearing, Salamanca, Spain.  

Presentations

Agus, T.R., Thorpe, S.J. & Pressnitzer, D. (2009) Deep-frozen noise: Long-term learning in adverse conditions (poster presentation). British Society of Audiology, Short Papers Meeting, Southampton.

Agus, T.R., Thorpe, S.J. & Pressnitzer, D. (2009) Learning auditory noise. Departmental Seminar, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Paris.

Agus, T.R. & Pressnitzer, D. (2009) Reaction times for natural sound identification (poster presentation). Association for Research in Otolaryngology MidWinter Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland.

Agus, T.R., Thorpe, S.J., Masquelier, T., Pressnitzer, D. (2009) Learning noise. Quatrième Réunion de l'ANR "Hearing Loss" avec l'ANR "HIT", Toulouse.

Agus, T.R., Beauvais M. & Pressnitzer, D. (2008) Implicit learning of noise (poster presentation). British Society of Audiology, Short Papers Meeting, York.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2008) Measuring the informational masking of speech for elderly listeners. Departmental Seminar, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, École normale supérieure, Paris.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2008) Do elderly listeners mix up simultaneous talkers more than younger listeners? Departmental Seminar, Department of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. 

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2008) Informational masking of speech for elderly listeners. Departmental Seminar, MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2007) Using the precedence effect to study informational masking in elderly listeners (oral presentation). British Society of Audiology, Short Papers Meeting, London.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2007) Informational masking measured in young and elderly listeners using a ‘two-channel’ speech-in-speech-in-noise design (poster presentation). Association for Research in Otolaryngology MidWinter Meeting, Denver, Colorado.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2006) Informational masking measured using a ‘two-channel’ speech-in-speech-in-noise design (poster presentation). British Society of Audiology, Short Papers Meeting, Cambridge.

Agus, T.R. & Akeroyd, M.A. (2005) Informational masking in speech recognition measured for elderly, hearing-impaired listeners (poster presentation). British Society of Audiology, Short Papers Meeting, Cardiff.

Agus, T.R., Akeroyd, M.A. & Gatehouse, S. (2005) The effect of aging on informational masking in speech reception (poster presentation). Aging and Speech Communication Research Conference, Bloomington, Indiana.