I Can Hear You Whisper

by Lydia Denworth

  CHAPTER 12: CRITICAL BANDWIDTHS

  This chapter is based on interviews with Graeme Clark, Margaret Clark, Richard Dowell, Hugh McDermott, Peter Blamey, Rob Shepherd, Bob Cowan, Michael Merzenich, Don Eddington, and Michael Dorman.

  Graeme Clark: Author interviews; Graeme Clark, Sounds from Silence: Graeme Clark and the Bionic Ear Story, (Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000) (a colleague joked, 211; one particularly stubborn surgical question, 93; original diagram wider and higher, 86; Rod Saunders, 117–121; quote from George Watson, 108; F0F2, 195–204); Blume, The Artificial Ear, 42–57.

  320,000 people use them: Because some of the manufacturers of cochlear implants are private companies, it is difficult to get an accurate, current figure for the number of users worldwide. This is the most recent figure available. It was provided by the Lasker Foundation when they awarded the 2013 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award to Graeme Clark, Ingeborg Hochmair, and Blake Wilson.

  UCSF: Author interviews; Robin P. Michelson, “Cochlear Implants: Personal Perspectives,” in Robert A. Schindler and Michael M. Merzenich, eds., Cochlear Implants (New York: Raven, 1985).

  “Our system extracted information”: Biographical monograph, Michael Merzenich, courtesy of Michael Merzenich; Blume, The Artificial Ear, 37, 46.

  Fletcher had introduced the concept of critical bandwidth: Fletcher interview with Bruce Bogert at Bell Labs circa 1963; Millman, ed., A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, 99–103 (vocoder).

  University of Utah: Author interviews; On the Brain, Fall 1994; Eddington, “Speech Recognition in Deaf Subjects.”

  FDA approval: Blume, The Artificial Ear, 46–57.

  The Utah device was sold: Author interview with Don Eddington.

  “for the first time”: FDA deputy commissioner Mark Novitch; Douglas Martin, “Dr. William F. House, Inventor of Pioneering Ear-Implant Device, Dies at 89,” New York Times, December 15, 2012.

  CHAPTER 13: SURGERY

  I know generally how the surgery went: Cochlear implant surgery is described in Debara L. Tucci and Thomas M. Pilkington, “Medical and Surgical Aspects of Cochlear Implantation,” in Niparko, ed., Cochlear Implants: Principles & Practices, 161–186; video demonstration at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMe3yr2ZnUI; George Alexiades et al., “Cochlear Implants for Infants and Children,” in Madell and Flexer, eds., Pediatric Audiology, 183–191.

  CHAPTER 14: FLIPPING THE SWITCH

  This chapter is based on personal recollection as well as a later interview with Lisa Goldin, and George Alexiades et al., “Cochlear Implants for Infants and Children,” in Madell and Flexer, eds., Pediatric Audiology.

  Daniel Ling: For Six-Sound Test, see Jane R. Madell, “Evaluation of Speech Perception in Infants and Children,” in Madell and Flexer, eds., Pediatric Audiology, 91.

  “bimodal” hearing: See R. H. Gifford et al., “Combined Electric and Contralateral Acoustic Hearing: Word and Sentence Recognition with Bimodal Hearing,” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 50 no. 4 (2007): 835; Ting Zhang, Michael F. Dorman, and Anthony J. Spahr, “Information from the Voice Fundamental Frequency (F0) Region Accounts for the Majority of the Benefit When Acoustic Stimulation Is Added to Electric Stimulation,” Ear and Hearing 31 no. 1 (2010): 63–69; T. Y. C. Ching, E. Van Wanrooy, and H. Dillon, “Binaural-Bimodal Fitting or Bilateral Implantation for Managing Severe to Profound Deafness: A Review,” Trends in Amplification 11 no. 3 (2007): 161–192.

  CHAPTER 15: A PERFECT STORM

  This chapter includes material from author interviews with Graeme Clark, Richard Dowell, Rob Shepherd, Peter Blamey, Hugh McDermott, Bill House, Paulette Fiedor, Simon Parisier, and Mark, Debi, and David Leekoff.

  Caitlin Parton: 60 Minutes, November 8, 1992.

  “People speak of the grief …” “There were no other families”: Melody James, speaking at the 102nd annual meeting of the Center for Hearing and Communication, online at http://www.chchearing.org/news-events/news-announcements/CHC-President-Letter%20.

  Fewer than three thousand people: Wilson and Dorman, Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants, 2.

  “There is no moral justification”: Medical World News, June 11, 1984, 34.

  Tracy Husted: See video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWJNXEeE0Vw; House, Struggles of a Medical Innovator, 88.

  Consensus was growing: Wilson and Dorman, Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants, 2.

  Cochlear, the Australian company: Clark, Sounds from Silence, chap. 11.

  Noel Cohen: Ibid., 158, 184–185.

  the FDA had specified: Ibid., p. 176.

  “They said this device”: Steve Parton on 60 Minutes.

  a new round of protests … “the best time to be Deaf”: Andrew Solomon, “Defiantly Deaf,” New York Times, August 28, 1994.

  “The deaf community has begun”: Dolnick, Atlantic Monthly, September 1993.

  Americans with Disabilities Act: http://www.ada.gov/.

  “leveled the playing field” … “$2.5 billion per year”: Bonnie Poitras Tucker, “Deaf Culture, Cochlear Implants, and Elective Disability,” Hastings Center Report 28 no. 4 (1998): 6–14.

  Cheryl Heppner told The Atlantic Monthly: Dolnick, Atlantic Monthly, September 1993.

  1990 decision to approve cochlear implants: Blume, The Artificial Ear, 55.

  just another in a long line of medical “fixes”: Author interviews with Ted Supalla, Carol Padden, Peter Hauser, Irene Leigh, and Matthew Bakke; Christiansen and Leigh, Cochlear Implants in Children, 256–161; Blume, The Artificial Ear, chap. 3; Padden and Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture, 166–168.

  “An implant is the ultimate invasion”: Matthew S. Moore and Linda Levitan, For Hearing People Only, 2nd ed., (Rochester, NY: Deaf Life, 1993), 191.

  Roslyn Rosen: Quoted in 60 Minutes.

  NAD had released an official statement: National Association of the Deaf position papers on cochlear implants, 1991, 2000. See also Christiansen and Leigh, Cochlear Implants in Children, 257.

  60 Minutes also received angry letters: Atlantic Monthly, 43.

  Confrontations between the Deaf community: For Sourds en Colère see Blume, The Artificial Ear, 106; “Cochlear Implants Protest in France,” DEAF-INFO, at http://www.zak.co.il/d/deaf-info/old/ci-france.

  increased risk of meningitis: Raylene Paludneviciene and Raychelle L. Harris, “Impact of Cochlear Implants on the Deaf community,” in Raylene Paludneviciene and Irene W. Leigh, eds., Cochlear Implants: Evolving Perspectives (Washington, DC, Gallaudet University Press, 2011), 6–7; Joseph Michael Valente, Benjamin Bahan, and H-Dirksen Bauman, “Sensory Politics and the Cochlear Implant Debates,” in Paludneviciene and Leigh, eds., Cochlear Implants: Evolving Perspectives, chap. 12; Deaf Liberation Front press release, online at http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/Bioethics/message/5594.

  In Melbourne, protesters: Clark, Sounds from Silence, 184 (photo).

  “Most of us would love”: Tucker, “Deaf Culture, Cochlear Implants, and Elective Disability.”

  the Smithsonian … was planning an exhibit: http://www.handsandvoices.org/about/story.htm.

  Gallaudet University was in the news again: Diana Jean Schemo, “Protests Continue at University for Deaf,” New York Times, May 13, 2006; Jane K. Fernandes, “Many Ways of Being Deaf,” Washington Post, October 14, 2006; Diana Jean Schemo, “Turmoil at College for Deaf Reflects Broader Debate, New York Times, October 21, 2006 (“More parents are choosing”); John B. Christiansen, Reflections: My Life in the Deaf and Hearing Worlds (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2010), part 3.

  Middle States Commission on Higher Education: “Statement of Accreditation Status: Gallaudet University,” online at http://www.msche.org/documents/SAS/237/Statement%20of%20Accreditation%20Status.htm.

  The numbers spoke for themselves: Gallaudet University Annual Report, 2011.

  CHAPTER 16: A CASCADE OF RESPONSES

  This chapter is based on interviews with David Poeppel, Greg Hickok, Andrew Oxe
nham, Usha Goswami, and Jeff Walker and visits to the Poeppel Lab at New York University.

  “run, don’t walk”: Poeppel speaking at the McGovern Institute, April 27, 2012, online at http://video.mit.edu/watch/2012-mcgovern-institute-symposium-david-poeppel-11234/.

  MEG: See http://web.mit.edu/kitmitmeg/whatis.html.

  Anu Sharma: See chapter 11.

  Eric Kandel: The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, April 16, 2013.

  Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who shared a Nobel Prize: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1906/.

  Each point where the response: The responses to stimuli are known as event-related potentials (ERPs). For more on ERPs, see Alexandra P. Fonaryova Key, Guy O. Dove, and Mandy J. Maguire, “Linking Brainwaves to the Brain: An ERP Primer,” Developmental Neuropsychology 27 no. 2 (2005): 183–215.

  bottom-up processing: For more information, see Andreas K. Engel, Pascal Fries, and Wolf Singer, “Dynamic Predictions: Oscillations and Synchrony in Top-down Processing,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2 no. 10 (2001): 704–716.

  Alvin Liberman … motor theory of speech perception: Alvin M. Liberman and Ignatius G. Mattingly, “The Motor Theory of Speech Perception Revised,” Cognition 21 no. 1 (1985): 1–36.

  representations and computations: See Patricia Smith Churchland and Terrence J. Sejnowski, “Neural Representation and Neural Computation,” Philosophical Perspectives 4 (1990): 343–382; David C. Knill and Alexandre Pouget, “The Bayesian Brain: The Role of Uncertainty in Neural Coding and Computation,” TRENDS in Neurosciences 27 no. 12 (2004): 712–719; Edmund T. Rolls and Gustavo Deco, Computational Neuroscience of Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Eric I. Knudsen, Sascha du Lac, and Steven D. Esterly, “Computational Maps in the Brain,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 10 no. 1 (1987): 41–65.

  predictive coding: For an example of how predictive coding works, see Gregory Hickok, “The Cortical Organization of Speech Processing: Feedback Control and Predictive Coding the Context of a Dual-Stream Model,” Journal of Communication Disorders 45 no. 6 (2012): 393–402.

  Andrew Oxenham: For examples of Andrew Oxenham’s work on cochlear implants, see Michael K. Qin and Andrew J. Oxenham, “Effects of Simulated Cochlear-Implant Processing on Speech Reception in Fluctuating Maskers,” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 114 no. 1(2003): 446–454; Andrew J. Oxenham, “Pitch Perception and Auditory Stream Segregation: Implications for Hearing Loss and Cochlear Implants,” Trends in Amplification 12 no. 4 (2008): 316–331.

  sine waves: Robert E. Remez et al., “Speech Perception Without Traditional Speech Cues,” Science 212 no. 4497 (1981): 947–950; see also http://www.haskins.yale.edu/research/sws.html.

  Bob Shannon: For Shannon’s study, see Robert V. Shannon et al., “Speech Recognition with Primarily Temporal Cues,” Science 270 no. 5234 (1995): 303–304.

  Ghitza and Greenberg: Oded Ghitza and Steven Greenberg, “On the Possible Role of Brain Rhythms in Speech Perception: Intelligibility of Time-Compressed Speech with Periodic and Aperiodic Insertions of Silence,” Phonetica 66 no. 1–2 (2009): 113–126.

  CHAPTER 17: SUCCESS!

  For personal chapters, I relied on my journals, recollections of events, and files of reports about Alex from audiologists, doctors, speech therapists, and teachers. I also interviewed some of the professionals who have worked with Alex over the years.

  CHAPTER 18: THE SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE

  This chapter uses material from interviews with Don Eddington, Michael Dorman, Elissa Newport, Mario Svirsky, Paulette Fiedor, the Leekoff family, Peter Hauser, Marc Marschark, David Pisoni, and Daphne Bavelier.

  In 1987 … The conclusion from that year: Wilson and Dorman, Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants, 2.

  a far more effective speech processing program: Author interviews with Michael Dorman and Don Eddington; Wilson and Dorman, Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants, 11–20.

  parents didn’t have to be all that good: Jenny L. Singleton and Elissa L. Newport, “When Learners Surpass Their Models: The Acquisition of American Sign Language from Inconsistent Input,” Cognitive Psychology 49 no. 4 (2004): 370–407; Danielle S. Ross and Elissa L. Newport, “The Development of Language from Non-native Linguistic Input,” Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development 2 (1996): 634–645.

  four portraits of Abraham Lincoln: Mario A. Svirsky et al., “Current and Planned Cochlear Implant Research at New York University Laboratory for Translational Auditory Research,” Journal of the American Academy of Audiology 23 no. 6 (2012): 422–437.

  enormous variability: Marschark, Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, 49–56.

  “Kids with implants are doing better”: Marschark writing on website for Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, June 21, 2011, at http://www.rit.edu/ntid/educatingdeafchildren/?cat=4&paged=3.

  Mario Svirsky: For examples of Svirsky’s research on outcomes, see Mario A. Svirsky et al., “Language Development in Profoundly Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants,” Psychological Science 11 no. 2 (2000): 153–158; Mario A. Svirsky et al., “Development of Language and Speech Perception in Congenitally, Profoundly Deaf Children as a Function of Age at Cochlear Implantation,” Audiology and Neurotology 9 no. 4 (2004), 224–233.

  Niparko study: John K. Niparko et al., “Spoken Language Development in Children Following Cochlear Implantation,” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 303 no. 15 (2010): 1498–1506.

  Geers study: Ann E. Geers, Johanna G. Nicholas, and Allison L. Sedey, “Language Skills of Children with Early Cochlear Implantation,” Ear and Hearing 24 no. 1S (2003): 46S–58S; Emily A. Tobey et al., “Factors Associated with Development of Speech Production Skills in Children Implanted by Age Five,” Ear and Hearing 24 no. 1S (2003): 36S–45S; Ann E. Geers, “Predictors of Reading Skill Development in Children with Early Cochlear Implantation,” Ear and Hearing 24 no. 1S (2003): 59S–68S; Ann Geers et al., “Long-Term Outcomes of Cochlear Implantation in the Preschool Years: From Elementary Grades to High School,” International Journal of Audiology 47 no. S2 (2008): S21–S30.

  “We felt retarded”: Jackie Roth quoted in Andrew Solomon, “Defiantly Deaf,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1994.

  the philosophy underlying deaf education had changed: For the history of changes in deaf education, see Paludneviciene and Harris, “Impact of Cochlear Implants on the Deaf Community,” and Harry G. Lang, “Perspectives on the History of Deaf Education,” in The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Toward Equality: The Education of the Deaf, 1988, at http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat17/135760.pdf; in Marschark and Hauser, eds., Deaf Cognition, see Bavelier et al. on visual attention (chap. 9), Pisoni on cochlear implants (chap. 3), Marschark on language comprehension (chap.12), and Hauser on executive function (chap. 11).

  “total communication” and SimCom: Marschark, Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, 66–67.

  “shouting”: Harlan Lane quoted in Atlantic Monthly, p. 50.

  Cued Speech: Ibid., 88–89.

  bilingual-bicultural: Ibid., 147–148.

  The question is no longer: Marschark and Hauser, eds., Deaf Cognition, chap. 16.

  “First, there has never been any real evidence”: Marshark, Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, 4.

  “Effective parent-child communication”: Ibid., 5.

  “as a hearing person”: Ibid., 7.

  “We have to consider”: Marschark and Hauser, eds., Deaf Cognition, chap. 16.

  “Are there any deaf children”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 19: A PARTS LIST OF THE MIND

  Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area: See Goldstein, Sensation and Perception, 8th ed., 323.

  Phineas Gage: Steve Twomey, “Phineas Gage: Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient,” Smithsonian, January 2010, online at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html.

  a ma
caque monkey’s visual system: David C. Van Essen, Charles H. Anderson, and Daniel J. Felleman, “Information Processing in the Primate Visual System: An Integrated Systems Perspective.” Science 255 no. 5043 (1992): 419–423.

  map of the auditory system: Jon H. Kaas, and Troy A. Hackett, “Subdivisions of Auditory Cortex and Processing Streams in Primates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 no. 22 (2000): 11793–11799.

  “I say to you ‘cat’”: From David Poeppel presentation, 2013 AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston.

  Hickok and Poeppel’s model: Gregory Hickok and David Poeppel, “The Cortical Organization of Speech Processing,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 no. 5 (2007): 393–402; Gregory Hickok and David Poeppel, “Dorsal and Ventral Streams: A Framework for Understanding Aspects of the Functional Anatomy of Language,” Cognition 92 no. 1 (2004): 67–99; Gregory Hickok and David Poeppel, “Towards a Functional Neuroanatomy of Speech Perception,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4 no. 4 (2000): 131–138.

  I even found it in a new textbook: Goldstein, Sensation and Perception, 323.

  Each of those linguistic tasks: Dorit Ben Shalom and David Poeppel, “Functional Anatomic Models of Language: Assembling the Pieces,” Neuroscientist 14 no. 1 (2008): 119–127; Eric Pakulak and Helen Neville, “Biological Bases of Language Development,” Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development, published online April 28, 2010, at http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pages/pdf/pakulak-nevilleangxp.pdf; Helen J. Neville and Daphne Bavelier, “Neural Organization and Plasticity of Language,” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 8 no. 2 (1998): 254–258. For more on development of linguistic tasks and reading, see Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 113.

  Janet Werker: For Werker study, see Judit Gervain and Janet F. Werker, “Prosody Cues Word Order in 7-Month-Old Bilingual Infants,” Nature Communications 4 no. 1490 (2013).