Home | Undergraduate | Graduate | Faculty & Staff | Research & Opportunities| News & Events | Alumni
Features
The Autism Clinic Opens!!!
By Amanda Adams, Ph.D.
Dr. Lachs Scores MBRS-SCORE Grant
Dr. Lachs' research program examines the ways that multiple sensory system (vision, hearing, touch, etc.) integrate with one another to provide rich, stable and informative data to the brain. Specifically, his laboratory focuses on how visual lipreading information integrates with auditory information about speech to aid in the perception and comprehension of language. The utility of visual (as opposed to auditory) information in helping individuals with hearing loss to perceive spoken language has long been acknowledged. For an individual with a small degree of hearing loss, the speech information obtained by the visual perceptual system can provide a valuable additional source of knowledge about the relationship between a spoken message and those aspects of the acoustic signal which remain perceptible. Indeed, for normal-hearing individuals, visual information about speech can also be useful, for example, under conditions with excessive auditory noise, or under conditions of divided attention.
It is currently not well-understood how the human brain is able to combine the light patterns perceived by the eyes with the very different sound patterns perceived by the ears. Dr. Lachs currently has several lines of research which focus on the psychophysical processes that underlie the brain's ability to integrate visually perceived speech with the sounds produced during speaking. One hypothesis is that the sound and light patterns which carry speech information also carry "cross-modal information", subtle cues that tell the brain that the two disparate signals must be interpreted together. However, no one yet knows what these cues are, or how they are represented in the auditory or visual stimulus. Several recent projects have investigated the existence and use of these cross-modal cues by distorting acoustic speech signals and examining the distortion's effect on perceivers' ability to integrate. In one study, it was determined that inter-relationships among acoustic frequency components are likely to be the carriers of cross-modal information. In another set of studies, it was determined that cross-modal cues can be useful for identifying voices, in addition to the meaning of an utterance.
Dr. Lachs was recently awarded a 3-year, $273K MBRS-SCORE grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the role of visual and auditory information in the development of speech perception processes. Recent investigations with hearing-aid users and cochlear implant recipients have confirmed that lipreading skill can play a role in the acquisition of auditory-alone speech perception skills. The proposed research examines the performance of normal-hearing individuals learning to perceive a distorted form of auditory speech. This distortion makes the speech difficult, if not impossible, to understand at first; however, with enough training, it becomes comprehensible. The training period can thus serve as an analog to the development of speech perception skills under normal conditions. Training normal-hearing individuals to perceive transformed speech provides a paradigm within which one can tightly control exposure to training materials and any concurrently available visual feedback. The rate at which perceivers learn to perceive a transformed speech signal can therefore be used as an index of the effectiveness of the multimodal factors that play a role in the perceptual learning of speech. A complete description of the effects of multisensory information on perceptual learning may inform the design of therapeutic techniques used to help individuals with new hearing aids or cochlear implants, and may be useful in developing automatic speech recognition systems in computers.
John Thomas Memorial Scholar
By Lynnette Zelezny, Ph.D.
Mary Ann Krating, (left in photo) a top graduate student in school psychology, who is conducting research on bullying, received the first John Thomas Memorial scholarship. The John Thomas alumni scholarship was endowed by the Department of 
Psychology in memory of John Thomas, a beloved alumnus of the CSUF school psychology program and an adjunct professor in the department of psychology, who tragically died of brain cancer last year.
Diana Thomas (John’s wife, right in photo), also an aluma of the CSUF school psychology program, awarded Mary Ann Krating the scholarship at the Department of Psychology’s Student Award Reception last spring at the Smittcamp Alumni House.
Mary Ann was also recognized as the first John Thomas Scholar at the recent Top Dog Alumni Awards celebration at the SaveMart Center.
Contributions to this memorial scholarship may be sent to Fresno State Alumni Association-John Thomas Memorial Scholarship, M/S SH124, CSU Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740.
Depression Screening Day
By Christine Edmondson, Ph.D.
Depression Screening Day at California State University, Fresno was on October 18, 2007. The even is the culmination of mental health outreach activities developed and implemented by Anger Research Team members and Psi Chi in collaboration with University Health and Psychological Services. 2007 marked the 10th year of collaboration between UHPS, Psi Chi, and the research team in providing this service.
Screening Days are mental health outreach activities that provide students with the opportunity to learn more about when and how to obtain counseling services. In addition, they help raise awareness about and reduce the stigma associated with depression and other mental illnesses. Finally, they are used to educate support staff and helping professionals about depression and how to help students who suffer from depression get appropriate treatment.
This year, the theme was, “Help a Friend – Know the Signs.” The goal was to help students recognize when they need to seek additional support for dealing with the challenges of college. The collaboration also sought to encourage students to support each other as they manage all the demands of their college studies.
Marketing activities before the event included distribution of fliers around campus and announcements to faculty, staff, and students via electronic communications. In announcements to faculty and staff, the educational nature of the event was emphasized and the faculty was encouraged to announce the event and support it by giving extra credit for attendance. Educational activities included training residence assistants in the dorms to recognize student distress and make appropriate referrals, as well as training Psychological Services staff to use the latest developments in research and clinical practice as they worked with students who have depression. On the day of the event in the Free Speech Area, research and Psi Chi students wore t-shirts and distributed information about the services available at the UHPS. These students also worked in the UHPS to greet screening participants and assist with scoring screening questionnaires. UHPS staff provided a video/lecture session and a meeting with a counselor to screening participants. Approximately 170 students participated in the screening acitivities available at the UHPS. Approximately 25% of screening participants were referred for follow up evaluations and counseling.
7th Annual ABA Conference a Success
By Amanda Adams, Ph.D.