Our studies vary in the amount of time they take and in what you would be asked to do.  Most of our studies involve a listening component, either to measure success with the implant itself, or to compare different types of processing strategies.

For studies with young children, we typically present single sentences along with multiple choices of pictures, and ask children to either point to the correct image, click on it with a mouse, or act out what they hear. We also measure which images children look at longer or sooner, as a measure of what interpretations they are considering. These studies typically take one or two visits of less than an hour.

Studies with adults typically involve computerized tests distinguishing different sounds or understanding speech. Testing can be done in 2- to 6- hour appointments for those who live in the area. For those traveling from out of town, day or multi-day trips are arranged.

For some studies, we will use your everyday processor or bypass the microphone to as our research questions. For other studies, we may bypass your everyday processor and control your implant at the single electrode level. This is a powerful technique to examine our research questions because we are able to use very specialized signals. (We do not change your clinical maps, so there is no risk of losing or ruining them!)