Dominique Simmons ’10 is member of a team of researchers at the University of California at Riverside who are developing a video game that may rehabilitate auditory dysfunction in veterans.
Auditory dysfunction, different from external hearing loss, is a neurological condition that occurs when an individual experiences brain trauma. In the case of American combat veterans, many are experiencing hearing dysfunction as a result of blast waves, leaving them with the inability to process speech in noisy environments – a condition that often leads to isolation and depression. The group launched a successful crowd funding campaign that will see their work through four different phases, culminating with the public release of the video game. Simmons is a cognitive psychology graduate student studying audiovisual speech perception.
Learn more about this research project from the Inland Empire's NPR member station, KVCR.
