Ewch i’r prif gynnwys
Dr Jacques Grange

Dr Jacques Grange

Lecturer (Human Factors)

Email
grangeja@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
available upon request
Campuses
2.11, Adeilad y Tŵr, Plas y Parc, Caerdydd, CF10 3AT

Trosolwg

Research summary

My primary research interest is in finding new ways to help the hearing impaired better understand speech in the most challenging situations, i.e. when noise and reverberation conspire to make speech almost unintelligible. Every little helps, every dB of improvement in speech-reception threshold counts. A collection of small benefits can indeed make the difference between a unilaterally deaf person, a hearing aid user or a cochlear implant  user being totally isolated or happily involved in face-to-face conversations in  typically noisy social settings.

One approach is to help the hearing impaired make the best  of the hearing they have, in combination with a given acoustic scene (e.g. my  PhD). Another is to examine how sound coding could be improved so as to more  faithfully transduce acoustical signals into the brain (e.g. my Postdoc).

Other aspects of my research involve projects at the heart of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Human-Machine Systems (IROHMS), such as the development of research capacity in IROHMS' Simulation Laboratory (e.g. visual and auditory aspects of the 6m-diameter full immersion cylinder), chairing an IROHMS working group across COMSci, ENGIN and PSYCH on "Ethical and Explainable AI, leading of a project entitled "Explainable AI and I", chairing a SIG on VR/AR and contributing to other flourishing IROHMS projects on robotics and AI.

Teaching summary

Other than teaching engineering in the context of continuing  education and throughout my previous 20-year carrier as a micro-technologist, for the Cardiff University School of Psychology I assisted the teaching of UG students during my PhD (2011-15) and supervised final-year project students and overseas/UK master project student throughout my postdocs (2015-19).

Since 2019, as a new lecturer, I contributed to the School's UG teaching and am now the module coordinator of the final-year MSc Human-Factor module, which I will expand with the PSYCH Human-Factor team to a 20-credit module and will later be integrated to a cross-school master.

Bywgraffiad

Undergraduate education

1985~1988 Engineering  Degree (1st 3 years) from INSA-Lyon, France.

Postgraduate education

  • 1988-1990: Engineering  Degree (to Masters level, additional 2 years) from INSA Lyon, France.
    Generalist training. Specialised in Material Physics and further specialised in Materials for  Micro-electronics. 5th year (89/90) as an exchange student at the Royal Institute of  Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.
  • 1990-1991: Higher degree (DEA, M-Phil equivalent) in Integrated Electronics  Devices, INSA Lyon, France.
  • 1992~1994 PhD (1st 18 months) in Surface Physics,  Physics & Astronomy Dept., UWCC,  Cardiff, UK.
  • 2011~2014 PhD in the Psychology of Auditory Perception,  Psychology Dept., Cardiff University, UK.

Employment

  • 1990-91: Teacher in the Continuing Education of Engineers for CAST/INSA, Lyon, France.
  • 1994~2010: Surface Technology Systems Plc, various  technology/managerial positions in Process, Engineering and R&D. Specialist  in Plasma-enhanced etch tool and process development for micro-device  manufacturing.
  • 2001: Wavesplitter Technologies Inc., Senior Process  Engineer, PLC production line developer.
  • 2015~2019: Research Associate, Cardiff University, School of Psychology.
  • 2019~present: Lecturer in Human Factors, Cardiff University, School of Psychology.

Cyhoeddiadau

2022

2020

2018

2017

2016

2015

2013

2012

Research topics and related papers

My PhD research was focused on helping cochlear implant (CI)  users deal with the detrimental effects of reverberation and noise in social  settings (a restaurant, for instance) and optimise their intelligibility of  speech. By “Realising the head-shadow benefit to cochlear implant users”, John  Culling and I aimed to establish how, by a modest head orientation away from a  speaker that does not impede lip-reading, people who struggle in noisy  environments can significantly improve their intelligibility of speech and be  involved in conversations rather than be socially isolated. The next step is  dissemination of our findings to not only directly inform CI users, but also  dispel the erroneous believes typically held by professionals (audiologists,  teachers of the deaf, speech therapists…), and as a result by many CI users,  that facing the speech is critical to optimum lip-reading or to an optimum use  of sound pick-up directionality. Not only is a side-along look at the speaker  compatible with lip-reading at a normal level, CI directional features are also  not so directional that the head-orientation benefit (3 to 5 dB) cannot be exploited.

  • Culling et al.  (2012) Ear and Hear. 33, 673–682.
  • Duda, R. O.  & Martens, W. L. (1998). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 3048-3058
  • Grange, J. A.  & Culling, J. F.
  • Hawley, M. L.,  Litovsky, R. Y. & Culling J. F. (2004). J. Acoust. So c. Am. 115, 833-843.
  • Hirsh, I.  (1950). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 22,  801-804.
  • van Hoesel, R.  J. M. (2007). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 2192-2206
  • van Hoesel, R.  J. M. & Tyler, R. S. (2003). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 1617-1630.
  • Jelfs, S., Culling,  J. F. & Lavandier, M. (2011). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 275, 96-104.
  • Kock, W.  (1950). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 22,  801-804.
  • Lavandier, M.  & Culling, J. F. (2010). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 387-399.
  • Loizou, P. C., et al. (2009). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 372-383.
  • Lovett, R. E.  S. et al. (2010). Arch. Dis. Child. 95, 107-112.
  • Muller, J.,  Schon, F., and Helms, J. (2002). Ear Hear. 23, 198–206.
  • NICE (2009)  TA166 Cochlear implants for children and adults with severe to profound  deafness.
  • Rayleigh,  Lord. (1904) Phil. Trans. 203, 149-165.
  • Schleich, P.,  Nopp, P., and D’Haese, P. (2004). Ear Hear. 25, 197–204
  • Tyler, R. S., et  al. (2002). Ear Hear. 23,  80S–89S

In my postdoctoral Research Associate role, I am focusing on  determining how valuable to bilateral CI users a specific sound coding strategy  could be. The excitation of nerve cells in the cochlea by a CI array of electrodes  is electrical in nature. The spread of the electrical field generated by an  electrode pulse causes, beyond the excitation of the target nerve cells, the  spread of current to neighbouring regions of the spiral ganglia. This current spread to regions sensitive to  different sound frequencies causes mixing of the spectral information provided  by neighbouring electrodes. This results in only 8 out of typically 20  electrodes being effective at transducing sound without spectral cross-over.

Beyond that, no increase in number of active electrodes, in other words no  increase in spectral resolution is beneficial to speech intelligibility. Our  first aim is to establish how best to simulate the effects of CI current spread  in normally hearing (NH) listeners. With the spread that matches NH simulation  data to CI user data, we will then explore the spectral interlacing/zipping strategy that consists in exciting only half of  the electrodes in each cochlea and providing only every other spectral channel  to one year (odd numbers) and the rest of the channels (even numbers) to the  other ear. This could limit the potentially detrimental effect of spread at  high spectral resolution and still provide the full spectral information over  the two ears. We will need to account for adaptation/perceptual learning in our  simulations, the timescale for which is yet unclear. Once successfully demonstrated in simulations, clinical trials on selected bilateral CI users  will take place in Southampton University, all going well.

  • Bingabr et al.  (2008). Hear. Res., 241, 73–79.
  • Culling and  Swan (2013) BCIG conference, Turnberry.
  • Culling et al.  (2012) Ear and Hear. 33, 673–682.
  • Dorman, et al.  (1997) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 2993–2996.
  • Friesen et al.  (2001) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 1150-1163.
  • Hancock et al.  (2012) J. Neurophysiol. 108, 714-728.
  • Hawley et al.  (2004). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 115, 833.
  • Kramer et al.  (1998). Audiology, 37, 302-312.
  • Kulkarni et al.  (2012) Int. J. Audiol. 51, 334-344.
  • Labak and  Majdak (2008). Proc. Natl .Acad. Sci . USA 105, 814–817, 2008.
  • Loizou et al.  (2003). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 114, 475–483.
  • Long et al.  (2003) J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 114, 1565-1574.
  • Long et al.  (2006). J. Res. Otolaryngol. 7, 352–360.
  • Lunner, et al.  (1993) Scand. Audiol. Suppl. 38, 75-81.
  • Nilsson, et al.  (1994). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 1085–1099.
  • Peissig and  Kollmeier, (1997). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 101, 1660–70.
  • Qin and Oxenham  (2003) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 114, 446-454.
  • Shannon et al.  (1995) Science 270, 303-304.
  • Siciliano at  al. (2010). J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127, 1645–60.
  • Tyler et al.  (2010). J. Am. Acad. Audiol. 21, 52-65.
  • van Besouw et al. (2013). J. Acoust. Soc.  Am., 134, 1348–1357.

Funding

  • PhD funded by Action on Hearing Loss (UK)
  • Postdoc funded by the Oticon Foundation (Denmark)

Research group

Research collaborators

  • John Culling (Cardiff PSYCH Professor, my Supervisor)
  • Steven Backhouse (Bridgend Princess of Wales Hospital, ENT surgeon)
  • Sarah  Hughes (Bridgend Princess of Wales Hospital, audiologist & PhD student)
  • Barry  Bardsley (Cardiff PSYCH PhD student, Swansea Audiology Lecturer)
  • Rob  McLeod (Cardiff PSYCH PhD Student, ENT Surgeon)

Meysydd arbenigol

Proffiliau allanol