Patrick Crosby
Fulbright Postgraduate Award
Media Profile
“Music is an important part of the daily lives of millions. Unfortunately, many cochlear implant patients report that music sounds unnatural and is often unrecognisable. Through research, at the Cooperative Research Centre for Cochlear Implant and Hearing aid Innovation, I aim to improve musical perception and recognition in languages where tonal qualities play an important role. ”
Patrick Crosby is a graduate of Duke University, North Carolina specialising in Science and Engineering. His outstanding research abilities and scientific interests have secured Crosby a Reginaldo Howard Scholarship and a Pratt Engineering Undergraduate Research Fellow. Crosby is one of twenty Americans to win the Fulbright Postgraduate Award in 2005, to conduct research at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Otolaryngology, where he will focus on challenges faced by current methods of signal processing in cochlear implants.
Music presents new challenges to implant designs, because unlike speech, successful music perception requires implants to convey relatively precise pitch information. However, the current speech-orientated cochlear implants remove much of the pitch information from incoming sounds which has minimal effect on speech perception but is detrimental to music perception.
“As a electrical and computer engineer, I look forward to the opportunity of working with the unique concentration of the world-renowned cochlear implant research centre at the Melbourne Hearing group,” states Crosby. “I will focus on the hardware design of cochlear implants to improve electrodes and stimulation techniques that could inevitably lead to implant designs with more functional electrode channels and dramatically increase music perception for children and adults that suffer from hearing loss.”
The Melbourne Hearing Group is a multidisciplinary research group comprised of the Bionic Ear Institute, the Cooperative Research Centre for Cochlear Implant and Hearing aid Innovation, and The University of Melbourne’s Department of Otolaryngology. The group will provide Crosby with a unique opportunity to perform cutting edge research into microelectrode technology.
Research suggests that an increased number of electrodes in cochlear implants are needed to improve music perception. However, increasing the number of electrodes can only be effective if each electrode can independently stimulate distinct populations of nerves. It is therefore impractical using current stimulation technology to add more electrode channels to existing arrays. Upon completion of his research, Crosby aims to provide clues to improving the coding of tonal languages in cochlear implants and also to improve the ability to hear pitch variations of music in deaf people.