In a nutshell
The TC PPA represents researchers and engineers working in the fields of auditory psychophysics and physiology. It aims at bridging the fundamental neural-based physiological research with auditory-based cognition and behaviour of natural listening situations.
Who we are?
The TC PPA represents researchers working on psychophysics and physiology of the auditory system, considering not only psychoacousticians, physiologists, and modellers doing fundamental science, but also researchers working in the applied disciplines such as audiologists and audio engineers. The TC PPA aims at bridging the output coming from the basic research with applications often reflected in model implementations, toolboxes, and applications.
Especially bridging the gap between psychological and physiological research is important. Physiological studies often provide evidence for mechanisms of underlying the auditory processing, creating a solid neural basis for models generating testable hypotheses about the cognitive consequences of neural circuits and their response patterns. Psychoacoustics, on the other hand, provides methodology to test these hypotheses in behavioural studies and natural listening situations, thus, to develop functional models and explanations of perceptual phenomena. Bridging physiology with psychoacoustics seems to be vital to expand our understanding of the auditory perception in order to foster new developments in technologies concerning hearing-aid devices and human-machine interaction such as virtual/augmented/extended reality.
The board
- Chair: Piotr Majdak (Vienna)
- Vice-chair: Janina Fels (Aachen)
- Council: Sarah Verhulst (Ghent), Mathieu Lavandier (Lyon), Andre Fiebig (Berlin), Armin Taghipour (Luzern)
Our goals
- To represent European researchers working in the fields of auditory science ranging from physiology to psychoacoustics;
- To promote the collaboration between physiologists, modellers, psychoacousticians, and audio engineers;
- To provide an organizational basis for exchange of students and more experienced researchers between laboratories;
- To promote the development and application of auditory models;
- To offer a market of opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows;
- To support teaching activities on the European level such as summer schools on the PPA topics;
- To act as a link between academic research institutions and (industrial) institutions of applied research (job market, industrial internships, supranational funding initiatives).
History
During the 12th International Symposium on Hearing in Mierlo in the year 2000 an initiative was formed to promote the formation of a technical committee “Psychological and physiological acoustics” (TC PPA) within the organization of the EAA. This committee started its provisional operation with a TC meeting at the EAA convention at Sevilla in 2002. At this meeting, Georg Klump (Oldenburg University, Germany) and Armin Kohlrausch (Philips Research Laboratories and Technical University Eindhoven, The Netherlands) were elected as speakers of the TC.
During the e-Forum Acusticum in December 2020 (held online because of the Covid-19 pandemic), the current board has been elected.
Membership
Who benefits from a membership in the TC PPA?
Established researchers: The core of the TC PPA is build upon established researchers in the field of hearing science. They benefit from the general goals of the TC and the ability to shape the future European PPA research landscape.
Young researchers: They benefit from the networking options, contributions to the knowledge exchange and information on opportunities.
Graduate students: They benefit from being integrated in a network of interdisciplinary research combining fundamental science with technical audio applications.
How to become a member?
All interested members of national acoustics institutions are invited. Simply send an email to the chairs.
Contact
- Piotr Majdak, Vienna <piotr.majdak@oeaw.ac.at>
- Janina Fels, Aachen <janina.fels@akustik.rwth-aachen.de>
