The New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB) at the University of Canterbury has been awarded more than $500,000 of funding by the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment for their project "Aero-Tactile Enhancement of Speech Perception". The research team is led by Dr Donald Derrick, a post-doctoral research fellow with MARCS Institute and NZILBB.  

The project aims to research aero-tactile stimulation for different speech conditions and for individuals with different hearing levels, providing a framework for building aero-tactile stimulation devices. It will create opportunity for medical devices in the form of enhanced audio devices and hearing aids using aero-tactile stimulation. It will also provide social and economic benefit to NZ in that people who may have been limited by their hearing will be able to communicate more effectively.  This multidisciplinary research through the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB) brings together researchers with backgrounds in linguistics, audiology, speech perception and multimodal integration.

For more information about the proejct, go to  http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/rss/news/?feed=news&articleId=522.