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This volume focuses on the history of research on hearing from comparative approaches. Each chapters examines the most formative studies that led to current understanding of hearing across taxa and still influence hearing research in general. Much of the early work on hearing, which goes back to Aristotle, as well as the classic work of 16th to early 20th century scientists (e.g., Spellanzani, Retzius, Ramón y Cajal, and Helmholtz) is not well known to modern investigators. Similarly, work in the first 75 years of the 20th century is also unknown or, in some cases, dismissed because it is “old.” Much of the earlier work describes research approaches and results fundamental to our understanding of hearing as well as the beauty of observation and synthesis. The pioneering work on hearing contains ideas and questions that are still germane today. Thus, the goal of this volume isto introduce, review, and put into perspective, older but exemplary, extraordinary studies by investigators that form the basis of our knowledge as well as questions being asked today.Each chapter includes the first significant observations and approaches to hearing in the taxa and/or hearing type that is the focus of the chapter with some of the most important earlier papers discussed in some detail, including the theories, formative experiments, results, and conclusions. Each chapter provides briefer notations and citations of additional important papers that are outgrowths of the founding research – or correlate and even reverse the original works. This volume is a departure from the classic approach established for the SHAR books in which the focus has been on a single topic, and on the most recent and exciting discoveries. One difference in this volume from past SHAR volumes is that we have a more coordinated approach for the chapters to ensure that this volume is, indeed, a documentation of hearing research history, not a review of the latest status of the topic. A second difference is that the focus of the volume is on the historical value of studies. In that sense, the volume maintains the tutorial value for which SHAR books are famous, but it explores the ancestry of modern research in order to help new researchers to gain perspective on important questions and on fundamental information they may not fully appreciate – to their loss. Our interest in doing this volume comes from phenomena familiar to most senior investigators - that younger investigators often have little or no sense of the history of their discipline, and they often do not know that their “hot” new idea was not only pursued, and often solved, but further that it was solved in an elegant way. We believe it is important to bring the methodologies and discoveries on hearing done before the advent of the internet to light, for the benefit and growth of new research.In deciding on the chapter divisions for this book, we considered a number of different organizational schemes, and particularly using as a focus methodological approaches (e.g., psychoacoustics, low to high frequency types, physiology, anatomy). However, we came to the conclusion that most investigators tend to be more focused on working within a particular taxonomic group, settling on particular taxa, in many cases driven by the special hearing abilities. We also concluded that that this approach is more naturally related to the evolution not only of hearing, but also to the evolution of ideas, as much of hearing science was part of the “natural philosopher” approach that was a core element of historical discoveries.

The concept of the “Soundscapes” includes all of the sounds in one's environment and focuses not only on the sounds itself. Instead, it focuses on the interrelationships between person and activity and place, both in space and time. Soundscape also include influences on the acoustic environment through auditory sensation, its interpretation, and the responses to the acoustic environment in context. The conceptual framework of Soundscape describes the “process of perceiving or experiencing and/or understanding an acoustic environment, highlighting general concepts and their relationships: context, sound sources, acoustic environment, auditory sensation, interpretation of auditory sensation, responses, and outcomes” (International Organization for Standardization, ISO 12913-1:2014 Acoustics Soundscape Part Definition and Conceptual Framework, ISO, Geneva, 2014).With soundscape, one achieves a deeper understanding of acoustic environment and its effects on people. The ISOstandard 12931-1 on soundscape provides an important, and rigorous, distinction in the use of “Soundscape.” But, it is recognizable that some individuals, particularly planners, designers, lay persons, and even those primarily interested in management of the acoustic environment through environmental noise control, will find it convenient to use “Soundscape” as a synonym for the physical acoustic environment.When it comes to noise management and urban planning, soundscape research has the potential to promote healthy urban environments by sharing and incorporating the significant knowledge of all concerned parties. Understandably, this shows that the communication with regard to noise management has to be forced to guarantee that the specifics of Soundscapes (i.e., the relevance of perception) are seriously considered alongside the whole.This book will bridge the gap between soundscape theory and practice and therefore it will be different from our earlierpublications as “Soundscape and the built environment” (ed. by J. Kang and B. Schulte-Fortkamp CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton, Fl 2016) and also from the respective Special Issues on Soundscapes in 2012 in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (ed. by B. Schulte-Fortkamp and J. Kang), and also the Special Issue in Acta Acustica 2006 •(ed. by B. Schulte-Fortkamp and D. Dubois), and the E-book on soundscape This volume will be driven by the difficult process of standardization of Soundscape and its evaluation procedures. The main goal of the proposed volume is to present and review the developments in Soundscape, reflecting the standardization procedure and the diverse inputs. the needs in management and planning in urban acoustic environments, the book will also focus on the difficulties, as well as the solutions, in interdisciplinary grounded communication, that is, on the one hand, related to science, but on the other to application, that needs guidance.

This volume provides a detailed update on progress in the field of hair cell regeneration. This topic is of considerable interest to academicians, clinicians, and commercial entities, including students of auditory and vestibular neuroscience, audiologists, otologists, and industry, all of whom may have interest in hair cell regeneration as a potential future therapy for hearing and balance dysfunction. In 2008, Springer published a SHAR volume on this subject (Hair Cell Regeneration, Repair, and Protection, Editors Richard Salvi and Richard Fay). Since that time, there has been considerable advancement in this field.This book provides a historical perspective on the field, but the emphasis is on more'prospective'views of the various facets of regeneration research, in the hope that the volume will stimulate new projects and approaches, focusing on the limitations of current knowledge and describing promising strategies for future work. The book will include thefollowing key features of hair cell regeneration: • Cellular and molecular control hair cell regeneration in non-mammalian species (in particular zebrafish and chickens) • Our current understanding of the capacity for hair cell replacement in mammals (rodents and humans). • Signals controlling pro-regenerative behaviors in supporting cells, the hair cell progenitors. • New techniques that have been applied to study the genetic and epigenetic regulation of hair cell regeneration in mammals and non-mammals. • Contributions of stem cells toward building new tools to explore how hair cell regeneration is controlled and toward developing cells and tissue for therapeutic transplantation. • Studies that have applied gene and drug therapy to promote regeneration in mammals.

This volume reviews contemporary developments in the auditory cognitive neuroscience of speech perception, including both behavioral and neural contributions. It serves as an important update on the current state of research in speech perception.The Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience of Speech Perception in ContextLori L. Holt, and Jonathan E. PeelleSubcortical Processing of Speech Sounds Bharath Chandrasekaran, Rachel Tessmer, and G. Nike GnanatejaCortical Representation of Speech Sounds: Insights from Intracranial ElectrophysiologyYulia Oganian, Neal P. Fox, and Edward F. ChangA Parsimonious Look at Neural Oscillations in Speech PerceptionSarah Tune, and Jonas ObleserExtracting Language Content From Speech Sounds: The Information Theoretic ApproachLaura Gwilliams, and Matthew H. DavisSpeech Perception under Adverse Listening ConditionsStephen C. VanHedger, and Ingrid S. JohnsrudeAdaptive Plasticity in Perceiving Speech SoundsShruti Ullas, Milene Bonte, Elia Formisano, and Jean VroomenDevelopment of Speech PerceptionJudit GervainInteractions Between Audition and Cognition in Hearing Loss and AgingChad S. Rogers, and Jonathan E. Peelle Dr. Lori Holt is a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and has affiliations with the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and the Center for Neuroscience University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Jonathan E. Peelle is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Allison Coffin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience at Washington State University Vancouver.Dr. Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Biology at the University ofMaryland, College Park.Dr. Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola, Chicago.

The field of Binaural Hearing involves studies of auditory perception, physiology, and modeling, including normal and abnormal aspects of the system. Binaural processes involved in both sound localization and speech unmasking have gained a broader interest and have received growing attention in the published literature. The field has undergone some significant changes. There is now a much richer understanding of the many aspects that comprising binaural processing, its role in development, and in success and limitations of hearing-aid and cochlear-implant users.The goal of this volume is to provide an up-to-date reference on the developments and novel ideas in the field of binaural hearing. The primary readership for the volume is expected to be academic specialists in the diverse fields that connect with psychoacoustics, neuroscience, engineering, psychology, audiology, and cochlear implants. This volume will serve as an important resource by way of introduction to the field, in particular for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, the faculty who train them and clinicians.

Since the first edition of the Aging Auditory System volume (in 2009), there has been a tremendous amount of research in basic, translational, and clinical sciences related to age-related changes in auditory system structure and function. The new research has been driven by technical and conceptual advances in auditory neuroscience at multiple levels ranging from cells to cognition. The chapters in Aging and Hearing: Causes and Consequences span a broad range of topics and appeal to a relatively wide audience. Our goal in this volume is to put together state-of-the-art discussions about new developments in aging research that will appeal to a broad audience, serving as an important update on the current state of research on the aging auditory system. This update includes not only the recent research, but also consideration of how human and animal studies or translational and basic research are working in tandem to advance the field. This new edition is a natural complement to the previous SHAR volume on the aging auditory system edited by Gordon-Salant, Frisina, Popper, and Fay.The target audience for this volume will be graduate students, researchers, and academic faculty from a range of disciplines (psychology, hearing science/audiology, physiology, neuroscience, engineering). It also will appeal to clinical audiologists as well as to researchers working in the hearing device industry. Individuals who attend conferences sponsored by the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Acoustical Society of America, Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Society, American Auditory Society, Society for Neuroscience, American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, and the American Academy of Audiology (among others) are likely to find value in the volume.

Vocal signals are central for social communication across a wide range of vertebrate species; consequently, it is critical to understand the mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and evolution of vocal communication. Songbirds are at the forefront of research into such neural mechanisms. Indeed, songbirds provide a particularly important model system for this endeavor because of the many parallels between birdsong and human speech. Specifically, (1) songbirds are one of the few vertebrate species that, like humans, learn their vocal signals during development, (2) the processes of song learning and control in songbirds shares many parallels with the process of speech acquisition in humans, and (3) there exist deep homologies between the circuits for the learning, control, and processing of vocal signals across songbirds and humans. In addition, because of the diversity of songbirds and song learning strategies, songbirds offer a powerful model system to use the comparative method to reveal mechanisms underlying the evolution of song learning and production. Taken together, research on songbirds can not only reveal general principles underlying vertebrate vocal communication but can also provide insight into potential mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and processing of speech. This volume will cover a range of topics in birdsong spanning multiple level of analysis. Chapters will be authored by the world's leading experts on birdsong and will provide comprehensive reviews of the processes underlying song learning, of the neural circuits for song learning and control as well as for the extraction and processing of song information, of the selection pressures underlying song evolution, and of genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the learning and evolution of song. The primary goals of this volume are to provide comprehensive, integrative, and comparative perspectives on birdsong and to underscore the importance of birdsong tobiomedical research, evolutionary biology, and behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience.The target audience of this volume will be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established academics and neuroscientists who are interested in mechanisms of communication from an integrative and comparative perspective. The volume is intended to function as a high-profile and contemporary reference on current work related to the learning, control, processing, and evolution of birdsong. This volume will have broad appeal to comparative and sensory biologists, neurophysiologists, and behavioral, systems, and cognitive neuroscientists who attend meetings such as the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Neuroethology, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Because of the relevance of birdsong research to understanding human speech, it is likely that the volume will also be of interest to speech researchers and clinicians researching communication, motor, and sensory processing disorders.

A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how the nervous system extracts biologically relevant information from the natural environment and how it uses that information to guide and coordinate behavior necessary for reproduction and survival. The electrosensory systems of weakly electric teleost fishes and those of nonteleost fishes are attractive systems for addressing basic questions about neuronal information processing and its relationship to natural behavior. Comparative approaches in these fishes have led to the identification of fundamental mechanisms that have shaped the adaptive evolution of sensory systems across animal taxa. Understanding how sensory systems encode and integrate information about the natural world has far reaching implications for advancing our knowledge in the basic biomedical sciences and in understanding how the nervous system has evolved to control behavior. The primary goal of this book is to provide a comparative perspectiveon the topic of electroreception and review some of the fundamental insights gained from studies of electrosensory and electromotor systems. Although totally independent, this book follows from volume 21 in the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research series, Electroreception (Bullock, T. H., Hopkins, C. D., Popper, A. N., and Fay, R. R., 2005, Springer-Verlag, New York).

Roughly defined as any property other than pitch, duration, and loudness that allows two sounds to be distinguished, timbre is a foundational aspect of hearing. The remarkable ability of humans to recognize sound sources and events (e.g., glass breaking, a friend's voice, a tone from a piano) stems primarily from a capacity to perceive and process differences in the timbre of sounds. Timbre raises many important issues in psychology and the cognitive sciences, musical acoustics, speech processing, medical engineering, and artificial intelligence. Current research on timbre perception unfolds along three main fronts: On the one hand, researchers explore the principal perceptual processes that orchestrate timbre processing, such as the structure of its perceptual representation, sound categorization and recognition, memory for timbre, and its ability to elicit rich semantic associations, as well as the underlying neural mechanisms. On the other hand, timbre is studied as part of specificscenarios, including the perception of the human voice, as a structuring force in music, as perceived with cochlear implants, and through its role in affecting sound quality and sound design. Finally, computational acoustic models are sought through prediction of psychophysical data, physiologically inspired representations, and audio analysis-synthesis techniques. Along these three scientific fronts, significant breakthroughs have been achieved during the last decade. This volume will be the first book dedicated to a comprehensive and authoritative presentation of timbre perception and cognition research and the acoustic modeling of timbre. The volume will serve as a natural complement to the SHAR volumes on the basic auditory parameters of Pitch edited by Plack, Oxenham, Popper, and Fay, and Loudness by Florentine, Popper, and Fay. Moreover, through the integration of complementary scientific methods ranging from signal processing to brain imaging, the book has the potential to leverage new interdisciplinary synergies in hearing science. For these reasons, the volume will be exceptionally valuable to various subfields of hearing science, including cognitive auditory neuroscience, psychoacoustics, music perception and cognition, but may even exert significant influence on fields such as musical acoustics, music information retrieval, and acoustic signal processing.It is expected that the volume will have broad appeal to psychologists, neuroscientists, and acousticians involved in research on auditory perception and cognition. Specifically, this book will have a strong impact on hearing researchers with interest in timbre and will serve as the key publication and up-to-date reference on timbre for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, as well as established scholars.

Auditory behavior, perception, and cognition are all shaped by information from other sensory systems. This volume examines this multi-sensory view of auditory function at levels of analysis ranging from the single neuron to neuroimaging in human clinical populations.Visual Influence on Auditory Perception Adrian K.C. Lee and Mark T. WallaceCue Combination within a Bayesian Framework David Alais and David BurrToward a Model of Auditory-Visual Speech Intelligibility Ken W. Grant and Joshua G. W. BernsteinAn Object-based Interpretation of Audiovisual Processing Adrian K.C. Lee, Ross K. Maddox, and Jennifer K. Bizley Hearing in a “Moving” Visual World: Coordinate Transformations Along the Auditory Pathway Shawn M. Willett, Jennifer M. Groh, Ross K. MaddoxMultisensory Processing in the Auditory Cortex Andrew J. King, Amy Hammond-Kenny, Fernando R. NodalAudiovisual Integration in the Primate Prefrontal Cortex Bethany Plakke and Lizabeth M. RomanskiUsing Multisensory Integration to Understand Human Auditory Cortex Michael S. BeauchampCombining Voice and Face Content in the Primate Temporal Lobe Catherine Perrodin and Christopher I. PetkovNeural Network Dynamics and Audiovisual Integration Julian Keil and Daniel SenkowskiCross-Modal Learning in the Auditory System Patrick Bruns and Brigitte RöderMultisensory Processing Differences in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder Sarah H. Baum Miller, Mark T. Wallace Adrian K.C. Lee is Associate Professor in the Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences and the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, SeattleMark T. Wallace is the Louise BMcGavock Endowed Chair and Professor in the Departments of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Psychiatry, Psychology and Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute at Vanderbilt University, NashvilleAllison B. Coffin is Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience at Washington State University, Vancouver, WAArthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College ParkRichard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago

The auditory system is a complex neural system composed of many types of neurons connected into networks. One feature that sets the auditory system apart from other sensory systems, such as somatosensory or visual systems, is the many stages of neural processing that occur between the ear in the periphery and the cerebral cortex. Each stage is composed of specialized types of neurons connected in specific microcircuits that perform computations on the information about sound. To understand this processing, all the tools of neuroscience must be employed. The proposed text integrates cell biology, synaptic physiology, and electrophysiology to fully develop the topic, presenting an overview of the functional anatomy of the central auditory system. It is organized based on the neuronal connectivity of the central auditory system, which emphasizes the neurons, their synaptic organization, and their formation of functional pathways and microcircuits. The goal of the book is to stimulate research into the cell biology of the central auditory system and the characteristics of the specific neurons and connections that are necessary for normal hearing. Future research on the development of the central auditory including that employing stem cells will require such information in order to engineer appropriate therapeutic approaches. ​

Over the past several years, many investigators interested in the effects of man-made sounds on animals have come to realize that there is much to gain from studying the broader literature on hearing sound and the effects of sound as well as data from the effects on humans. It has also become clear that knowledge of the effects of sound on one group of animals (e.g., birds or frogs) can guide studies on other groups (e.g., marine mammals or fishes) and that a review of all such studies together would be very useful to get a better understanding of the general principles and underlying cochlear and cognitive mechanisms that explain damage, disturbance, and deterrence across taxa.The purpose of this volume, then, is to provide a comprehensive review of the effects of man-made sounds on animals, with the goal of fulfilling two major needs. First, it was thought to be important to bring together data on sound and bioacoustics that have implications across all taxa (including humans) so that such information is generally available to the community of scholars interested in the effects of sound. This is done in Chaps. 2-5. Second, in Chaps. 6-10, the volume brings together what is known about the effects of sound on diverse vertebrate taxa so that investigators with interests in specific groups can learn from the data and experimental approaches from other species. Put another way, having an overview of the similarities and discrepancies among various animal groups and insight into the “how and why” will benefit the overall conceptual understanding, applications in society, and all future research.

By far, the most widely used subjects in psychological and biological research today are rodents. Although rats and mice comprise the largest group of animals used in research, there are over 2,000 species and 27 families of rodents, living all over the world (except Antarctica) and thriving in many different habitat types. The vast environmental diversity that rodents face has led to numerous adaptations for communication, including vocalizing and hearing in both the sonic and ultrasonic ranges, effectively communicating in the open air and underground, and using vocalizations for coordinating sexual behavior, for mother-pup interactions, and for signaling an alarming situation to the group. Some rodent species have even developed foot drumming behaviors for communication. Comparative studies from around the globe, using both field and laboratory methodologies, reveal the vast differences in acoustic communication behavior across many rodent species. Some rodents are amenable to training and have been domesticated and bred purely for research purposes. Since the early 1900s, rats and mice have been indispensable to research programs around the world. Thus, much of what we know about hearing and vocalizations in rodents come from these two species tested in the laboratory. The sequencing of the mouse genome in 2002, followed by the rat genome in 2004, only increased the utility of these animals as research subjects since genetically engineered strains mimicking human diseases and disorders could be developed more easily. In the laboratory, rats and mice are used as models for human communication and hearing disorders and are involved in studies on hearing loss and prevention, hormones, and auditory plasticity, to name a few. We know that certain strains of mice retain hearing better than others throughout their lifespan, and about the genes involved in those differences. We know about the effects of noise, hormones, sex, aging, and circadian rhythms on hearing in mice and other rodents. We also know about normal hearing in many families of rodents, including the perception of simple and complex stimuli and the anatomy and physiology of hearing and sound localization.The importance of acoustic communication to these animals, as well as the significance of these mammals to biomedical research, are summarized in the chapters.

Presents a comprehensive review of nonhuman primate audition and vocal communication. These are obviously intimately related topics, but are often addressed separately. The hearing abilities of primates have been tested experimentally in a large number of species across the primate order, and these studies have revealed both consistent patterns as well as interesting variation within and between taxonomic groups. Recent studies have shed light on how variation in anatomical structures along the auditory pathway relates to variation in auditory sensitivity. At the same time, ongoing studies of vocal communication in wild primate populations continue to reveal new insights into the social and environmental contexts of many primate calls, and the range of known primate vocalizations has increased dramatically with the development of more sophisticated and accessible auditory equipment and software that enables the recording and analysis of higher-fidelity and broader-band recordings, including documenting very high frequency (i.e. ultrasound) vocalizations. Historically the relative importance of primate calls has been evaluated qualitatively by the perception of the researcher, but new methods and approaches now enable a greater appreciation for how signals are used and perceived by the primates in question. The integration of anatomical and behavioral data on acoustic communication and the environmental correlates thereof has significant potential for reconstructing behavior in the fossil record. This confluence of factors and accumulating evidence for the sophistication and complexity in both the signal and its interpretation indicate that a book synthesizing this information across primates is warranted and represents an important contribution to the literature.

This volume presents a set of essays that discuss the development and plasticity of the vertebrate auditory system. The topic is one that has been considered before in the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (volume 9 in 1998, and volume 23 in 2004) but the field has grown substantially and it is appropriate to bring previous material up to date to reflect the wealth of new data and to raise some entirely new topics. At the same time, this volume is also unique in that it is the outgrowth of a symposium honoring two-time SHAR co-editor Professor Edwin W Rubel on his retirement. The focus of this volume, though, is an integrated set of papers that reflect the immense contributions that Dr. Rubel has made to the field over his career. Thus, the volume concurrently presents a topic that is timely for SHAR, but which also honors the pioneer in the field. Each chapter explores development with consideration of plasticity and how it becomes limited over time. The editors have selected authors with professional, and often personal, connections to Dr. Rubel, though all are, in their own rights, outstanding scholars and leaders in their fields. The specific audience will be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established psychologists and neuroscientists who are interested in auditory function, development, and plasticity. This volume will also be of interest to hearing scientists and to the broad neuroscience community because many of the ideas and principles associate with the auditory system are applicable to most sensory systems. The volume is organized to appeal to psychophysicists, neurophysiologists, anatomists, and systems neuroscientists who attend meetings such as those held by the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Society for Neuroscience.

The Auditory System at the Cocktail Party is a rather whimsical title that points to the very serious challenge faced by listeners in most everyday environments: how to hear out sounds of interest amid a cacophony of competing sounds. The volume presents the mechanisms for bottom-up object formation and top-down object selection that the auditory system employs to meet that challenge. Ear and Brain Mechanisms for Parsing the Auditory Scene by John C. Middlebrooks and Jonathan Z. Simon Auditory Object Formation and Selection by Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Virginia Best, and Adrian K. C. Lee Energetic Masking and Masking Release by John F. Culling and Michael A. Stone Informational Masking in Speech Recognition by Gerald Kidd, Jr. and H. Steven Colburn Modeling the Cocktail Party Problem by Mounya Elhilali Spatial Stream Segregation by John C. Middlebrooks Human Auditory Neuroscience and the Cocktail Party Problem by Jonathan Z. Simon Infants and Children at the Cocktail Party by Lynne Werner Older Adults at the Cocktail Party by M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, Claude Alain, and Bruce A. Schneider Hearing with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids in Complex Auditory Scenes by Ruth Y. Litovsky, Matthew J. Goupell, Sara M. Misurelli, and Alan Kan About the Editors: John C. Middlebrooks is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine, with affiliate appointments in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Jonathan Z. Simon is a Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, with joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Biology, and the Institute for Systems Research. Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and Research Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago. About the Series: The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of synthetic reviews of fundamental topics dealing with auditory systems. Each volume is independent and authoritative; taken as a set, this series is the definitive resource in the field.

This SHAR volume serves to expand, supplement, and update the original'Cochlea'volume in the series. The book aims to highlight the power of diverse modern approaches in cochlear research by focusing on advances in those fields over the last two decades. It also provides insights into where cochlear research is going, including new hearing prostheses for the deaf that will most likely soon enter the phase of clinical trials. The book will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary readership, including neuroscientists and clinicians in addition to the more specific auditory community.

This volume will cover a variety of topics, including child language development; hearing loss; listening in noise; statistical learning; poverty; auditory processing disorder; cochlear neuropathy; attention; and aging. It will appeal broadly to auditory scientists—and in fact, any scientist interested in the biology of human communication and learning. The range of the book highlights the interdisciplinary series of questions that are pursued using the auditory frequency-following response and will accordingly attract a wide and diverse readership, while remaining a lasting resource for the field.

This book reviews the growing literature that is consistent with the hypothesis that hormones can regulate auditory physiology and perception across a broad range of animal taxa, including humans. Understanding how hormones modulate auditory function has far reaching implications for advancing our knowledge in the basic biomedical sciences and in understanding the evolution of acoustic communication systems. A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how hormones modulate neural circuits and behavior. For example, steroids such as estrogens and androgens are well-known regulators of vocal motor behaviors used during social acoustic communication. Recent studies have shown that these same hormones can also greatly influence the reception of social acoustic signals, leading to the more efficient exchange of acoustic information.

This volume will serve as the first Handbook of its kind in the area of hearing aid research, often the least-defined, least-understood, part of the multi-disciplinary research process. Most scientific training is very advanced within the particular disciplines but provides little opportunity for systematic introduction to the issues and obstacles that prevent effective hearing-aid related research. This area has emerged as one of critical importance, as signified by a single specialized meeting (the International Hearing Aid Conference, IHCON) that brings together specialists from the disparate disciplines involved, including both university and industry researchers. Identification of the key steps that enable high-impact basic science to ultimately result in significant clinical advances that improve patient outcome is critical. This volume will provide an overview of current key issues in hearing aid research from the perspective of many different disciplines, not only from the perspective of the key funding agencies, but also from the scientists and clinicians who are currently involved in hearing aid research. It will offer insight into the experience, current technology and future technology that can help improve hearing aids, as scientists and clinicians typically have little or no formal training over the whole range of the individual disciplines that are relevant. The selection and coverage of topics insures that it will have lasting impact, well beyond immediate, short-term, or parochial concerns. ​

This volume details the essential role of the spiral ganglion neurons. The volume elucidates and characterizes their development, their environment, their electrophysiological characteristics, their connectivity to their targets in the inner ear and the brain, and discusses the potential for their regeneration. A comprehensive review about the spiral ganglion neurons is important for researchers not only in the inner ear field but also in development, neuroscience, biophysics as well as neural networks researchers. The chapters are authored by leading researchers in the field.

Insect Hearing provides a broadly based view of the functions, mechanisms, and evolution of hearing in insects. With a single exception, the chapters focus on problems of hearing and their solutions, rather than being focused on particular taxa. The exception, hearing in Drosophila, is justified because, due to its ever growing toolbox of genetic and optical techniques, Drosophila is rapidly becoming one of the most important model systems in neurobiology, including the neurobiology of hearing. Auditory systems, whether insectan or vertebrate, must perform a number of basic tasks: capturing mechanical stimuli and transducing these into neural activity, representing the timing and frequency of sound signals, distinguishing between behaviorally relevant signals and other sounds and localizing sound sources. Studying how these are accomplished in insects offers a valuable comparative view that helps to reveal general principles of auditory function.

Arguably biosonar is one of the ‘eye-opening'discoveries about animal behavior and the auditory systems of echolocators are front and center in this story. Echolocation by bats has proven to be a virtual gold mine for colleagues studying neurobiology, while providing many rich examples of its impact on other areas of bats'lives. In this volume we briefly review the history of the topic (reminding readers of the 1995 Hearing by Bats). We use a chapter on new findings in the phylogeny of bats to put the information that follows in an evolutionary context. This includes an examination of the possible roles of Prestin and FoxP2 genes and various anatomical features affecting bat vocalizations. We introduce recent work on the role of noseleafs, ears, and other facial components on the focusing of sound and collection of echoes. ​

The evolution of vertebrate hearing is of considerable interest in the hearing community. However, there has never been a volume that has focused on the paleontological evidence for the evolution of hearing and the ear, especially from the perspective of some of the leading paleontologists and evolutionary biologists in the world. Thus, this volume is totally unique, and takes a perspective that has never been taken before. It brings to the fore some of the most recent discoveries among fossil taxa, which have demonstrated the sort of detailed information that can be derived from the fossil record, illuminating the evolutionary pathways this sensory system has taken and the diversity it had achieved.

Translational Research is the interface between basic science and human clinical application, including the entire process from animal studies to human clinical trials (phases I, II, and III). Translational Research moves promising basic science results from the laboratory to bedside application. Yet, this transition is often the least-defined, least-understood part of the research process. Most scientific training programs provide little or no systematic introduction to the issues, challenges, and obstacles that prevent effective research translation, even though these are the key steps that enable high-impact basic science to ultimately result in significant clinical advances that improve patient outcome. This volume will provide an overview of key issues in translation of research from “bedside to bench to bedside”, not only from the perspective of the key funding agencies, but also from the scientists and clinicians who are currently involved in the translational research process. It will attempt to offer insight into real-world experience with intellectual property and technology transfer activities that can help move auditory technologies ahead, as scientists and clinicians typically have little or no formal training in these areas. Translational Research in Audiology and the Hearing Sciences will be aimed at graduate students and postdoctoral investigators, as well as professionals and academics. It is intended to function as a high-profile and up-to-date reference work on Translational Research in the auditory sciences, emphasizing research programs in the traditional areas including drugs and devices, as well as less traditional, still emerging, areas such as sensorineural hearing loss, auditory processing disorder, cochlear implants and hearing aids, and tinnitus therapies.

Although the fundamental principles of vocal production are well-understood, and are being increasingly applied by specialists to specific animal taxa, they stem originally from engineering research on the human voice. These origins create a double barrier to entry for biologists interested in understanding acoustic communication in their study species. The proposed volume aims to fill this gap, providing easy-to-understand overviews of the various relevant theories and techniques, and showing how these principles can be implemented in the study of all main vertebrate groups. The volume will have eleven chapters assembled from the world's leading researchers, at a level intelligible to a wide audience of biologists with no background in engineering or human voice science. Some will cover sound production in a particular vertebrate group; others will address a particular issue, such as vocal learning, across vertebrate taxa. The book will highlight what is known and how to implement useful techniques and methodologies, but will also summarize current gaps in the knowledge. It will serve both as a tutorial introduction for newcomers and a springboard for further research for all scientists interested in understanding animal acoustic signals.