Electro-Haptics Research

A new approach to implant listening

Hearing loss is a global challenge, particularly in countries with ageing populations. Unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual global cost of $750 billion and recent work has shown a strong link between hearing loss and dementia. Over a billion young people are at risk of hearing loss because of the way they listen to music.

Hundreds of thousands of people depend on implanted electronic devices to hear. These devices, known as auditory or cochlear implants, aren't perfect. Implant users have difficulty knowing where sounds originate, are unable to enjoy music, and find it difficult to understand speech when there is background noise - like in a busy workplace, crowded restaurant or chaotic classroom. We have a new approach to solve this problem by transferring crucial sound information through the skin.

We are developing a low-cost haptic device that could revolutionise the treatment of hearing loss.

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Implants in noise

Auditory implant users struggle to understand speech in noisy environments.

People with auditory implants hear the world in a very different way to people with healthy hearing. In an implant user, the sound that is usually transmitted to the brain by thousands of extraordinarily sensitive cells in the ear is instead transmitted by just 22 micro-electrodes. This means that the information transmitted to the brain is severely limited.

We've made a quick demo that simulates how hard it can be for auditory implant users to understand speech in complex sound environments. It's available to use for free as a teaching or demonstrating tool (YouTube or Download).

Note: these are just simulations based on models of how CIs work with the brain. CI users experience their device in different ways depending on a range of factors.

Implants and Music

Note: these are just simulations based on models of how CIs work with the brain. CI users experience their device in different ways depending on a range of factors.

Music sounds very different to implant users. They can struggle to distinguish different pitches, and they have poor access to the quality, or "timbre", of sounds.

This short demo that simulates what it is like to hear music as a auditory implant user. Like the demo above, it's available to use for free as a teaching or demonstrating tool (YouTube or Download).

Hearing through your skin

"The brain takes information from the senses to build a model of the world. When information is missing from one sense, we can use another sense to add it back in." - Dr Mark Fletcher, project lead

Our research is all about finding ways to send crucial sound information through the skin as small vibrations. We've shown that this can work in the lab–now we're taking it to the real world.

We are developing a wrist-worn device that we have shown can improve implant users’ speech understanding and could transform their lives.

Our new haptic device coming soon

Discreet: we're developing a slim, discreet wrist worn device that won't get in the way of daily activities.

Precise: we're focused on making sure our vibrations are reproduced perfectly in sync with the sound, without any distortion of the signal.

Comfortable: a priority in our design and manufacture process has been making the mosaicOne lightweight and comfortable to wear for long periods.

Quiet: our algorithms and motors have been carefully developed so that they are near-silent.

Training at home

Learning to use new information is an important part of the electro-haptic effect. We're building a remote training system to see how people learn to use electo-haptic stimulation over time.

Our research uses RealSpeech, an auditory training app developed by Dr Mark Fletcher and Dr Ian Wiggins from the electro-haptics team. RealSpeech has a large library of talkers and background environments, over 20 hours of synchronised high-definition video and audio, and is set up for remote data collection.

News

Our new device at the British Cochlear Implant Group meeting

The mosaicOne prototype shakes things up at BCIG
Our new poster from the meeting (pdf)

Our new paper, now available as a preprint

Fletcher, M.D., Hadeedi, A., Goehring, T., & Mills, S.R. (2019) Electro-haptic hearing: Speech-in-noise performance in cochlear implant users is enhanced by tactile stimulation of the wrists (preprint)

£500k grant to support Electro-Haptics Research

The Electro-Haptics Research project is now supported by grants awarded by the Oticon Foundation and the Danish Innovation Fund
The new multi-centre project is led by Dr Mark Fletcher (University of Southampton), with a team from the University of Southampton, University of Iceland, University of Nottingham, Danish Technical University and Oticon Medical.
Researchers will be working on ways to improve CI listening using a new haptic device.