Department of Psychology Faculty

Quentin Summerfield

Personal Details

 picture of Prof. Q. Summerfield
Name: Prof. Q. Summerfield   BA, MA, PhD
Room: PS/B109/B004
Telephone: +44 (0) 1904 432913
Email: aqs1@york.ac.uk
Position: Professor
Appointed: 2004
Research Group: Perception and Action

Qualifications and Awards

Degree: BA (Cambridge, Natural Sciences) 1971
Masters: MA (Cambridge) 1974
PhD: PhD (Queen's, Belfast) 1975
Others: Joint recipient, with Dr D.H. Marshall, of the George Davey Howells Memorial Prize from the University of London, in recognition of the contribution to Otolaryngology of the report on the Evaluation of the National Cochlear Implant Programme (1995).
Awarded the Edith Whetnall Memorial Medal by the Otology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in recognition of the contribution to otological medicine of the evaluation of the National Cochlear Implant Programme (1996).
Elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (1998).

Miscellaneous

Memberships: Experimental Psychology Society; Acoustical Society of America; Association for Research in Otolaryngology; British Society of Audiology; British Cochlear Implant Group.
Career Information: NATO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Haskins Laboratories, Yale University (1975-77); Speech and Hearing Scientist, MRC Institute of Hearing Research (1977-2004); Deputy Director, MRC Institute of Hearing Research (1993-2004); Anniversary Professor of Psychology, University of York (2004-).

Teaching

Advanced Modules Auditory perception and hearing health care: the management of profound hearing loss

Research

Research Area

I joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology on 1st October 2004. Previously, I worked for the Medical Research Council at the Institute of Hearing Research in Nottingham. While I was there, I conducted two types of research: basic research with listeners with normal hearing on the auditory processes that are used to attend to one source of sound, such as one voice or one musical instrument, when many sources are present simultaneously; and applied research with profoundly hearing-impaired people on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of cochlear implantation. Here in York, I am setting up a laboratory in collaboration with Dr Peter Bailey to study ‘Spatial Listening’ in children and adults. Spatial Listening is the ability to attend to one source of sound in a mixture of sources in order to determine where it is located, in which direction it is moving, and what information it is conveying. These abilities are singular achievements of normal hearing. They allow listeners to know where to move to avoid hazards and where to look to see who is talking. They are crucial, therefore, for participation at home, for success at school, and for survival outdoors. Their breakdown is a major cause – possible the major cause – of auditory handicap in young and old age.

Publications

Summerfield A.Q. and Marshall D.H., on behalf of the United Kingdom Cochlear Implant Study Group. (2004). Criteria of candidacy for unilateral cochlear implantation in post-lingually deafened adults III: Prospective evaluation of an actuarial approach to defining a criterion. Ear and Hearing, 25: 361-374.

Summerfield A.Q., Nakisa M.J., Archbold S., McCormick B., Gibbin K.P., O’Donoghue G.M. (2002) Use of vocalic information in the identification of ‘S’ and ‘SH’ by children with cochlear implants. Ear and Hearing, 23, 58-77.

Fortnum H.M., Summerfield A.Q., Marshall D.H., Davis A.C., Bamford J.M. (2001). Prevalence of permanent childhood hearing impairment in the United Kingdom and implications for universal neonatal hearing screening: questionnaire based ascertainment study. British Medical Journal 323, 536-539.

Hall D.A., Johnsrude I.S., Haggard M.P., Palmer A.R., Akeroyd M.A., Summerfield A.Q. (2002) Spectral and temporal processing in human auditory cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 12, 140-9.

Akeroyd M.A., Summerfield A.Q. (2000). Integration of monaural and binaural evidence of vowel formants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 107, 3394-3406.

On Line Resources

Home page:   http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~aqs1/
Other Links: Auditory Perception and Hearing Health Care Research Group Website

  Department of Psychology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
  Tel: 01904 433189, Fax (+44) 01904 433181.     [rfs1: 12 Jan 2009 (14.58). Edit ]