During her PhD study, Anna Sergeeva investigated how auditory evoked brain responses can be used for hearing assessment. She measured the evoked responses using both conventional electroencephalography (EEG) and ear-EEG; that is, from electrodes placed respectively on the head and in the ear. The advantage of the ear-EEG technique is that it is easy to use and enables discrete measurement of brain responses in everyday life. More specifically, Anna Sergeeva studied how the brain responses were affected by manipulation of stimulus properties such as bandwidth and intensity. She also investigated how subtle manipulations (in the form of sub-band amplitude modulation) to natural occurring sounds can be used to evoke specific brain responses. Furthermore, to improve the quality of the ear-EEG based method, Anna studied various signal processing algorithms.

The findings of her study contribute to the development of methods for hearing loss assessment suitable for daily life applications. Integrated into hearing aids the methods will allow automatic adjustment of the device during the daily life of the user.

The PhD study was completed at Center for Ear-EEG at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University.

This résumé is prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Friday, 17 November 2023 at 13:00
Place: Building 5125, room 423, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Finlandsgade 22, 8200 Aarhus N
Title of PhD thesis: Towards Ear-EEG Based Hearing Assessment Using Natural Sounds
Contact information: Anna Sergeeva, e-mail: ans@ece.au.dk, tel.: +45 60697707

Members of the assessment committee:
Professor Jan Wouters, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Belgium

Prinicipal Investigator Martin G. Bleichner, Department of Psychology, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Associated Professor Peter Johansen (chair), Department for Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark

Main supervisor:
Professor Preben Kidmose, Department for Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark
Co-supervisor:
R&D Engineer Christian Bech Christensen, Department for Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark

Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public. The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Technical Sciences/GSTS,
Jens Baggesens Vej 53, building 5221, 8200 Aarhus N.