# Objective measurement of cognitive systems during effortful listening

> **NIH VA IK1** · JAMES H QUILLEN VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · —

## Abstract

David Benjamin Ryan completed his doctoral degree in Experimental Psychology December 2014 at
East Tennessee State University (ETSU). He has over six years of research experience working
primarily in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded research laboratory of Eric Sellers Ph. D.
During that time he focused on advancing cognitive psychology by utilizing non-invasive methods of the
electroencephalogram (EEG) of visual event-related potentials (ERPs) in brain-computer interface
(BCI) paradigms. Dr. Ryan’s primary research interests have expanded to include EEG measurements
of listening effort. He is currently funded temporarily by the Hearing and Balance Research Program at
the Mountain Home Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) as he works towards establishing his own
grant funding. The Career Development Award 1 (CDA-1) would provide Dr. Ryan with the opportunity
to develop new research skills and mentoring needed to expand his research interests and to become
an independent VA investigator. There are four mentors for this proposal: (1) Sherri Smith, Au. D,
Ph.D., is Service Chief of the Audiology and Speech Pathology Service, VA-funded Clinician
Investigator, Director of the Audiologic Rehabilitation Laboratory, Mountain Home, and Associate
Professor in Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology (ASLP) at ETSU, (2) Eric
Sellers, Ph. D, Director of the BCI Laboratory and Associate Professor in Psychology at ETSU, (3)
Mark Eckert, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Otolaryngology at Medical University of South Carolina, (4)
Kim Schairer, Ph. D., Clinician Investigator, Director of the Applied Hearing Research Laboratory at
Mountain Home, and Associate Professor in the Department of ASLP at ETSU. Dr. Ryan has proposed
a rigorous training plan including coursework, seminars in EEG analysis, hands on training in Bayesian
statistics, and travel to conferences for continued professional development and education. The
research will be conducted in the Audiologic Rehabilitation Laboratory at Mountain Home, TN VA
Medical Center. The Hearing and Balance Research Program has a rich research environment and
houses a renowned auditory and vestibular research program with state-of the-art facilities. The broad
long-term goal of this research is the development of a clinically relevant measurement of listening
effort to improve clinicians’ ability to assess and to formulate a rehabilitation plan for listeners with
hearing loss. The goal of the current project is to understand the underlying neurological mechanisms
associated with listening effort from which to modify interpretation of current measures or develop a
clinically-relevant procedure to measure and quantify an individual’s listening effort during speech
perception. This goal will be achieved through three objectives: (1) by examining perceived effort and
EEG variables while the listener is engaged in a speech-in-noise task and an auditory working memory
task, (2) by examining differenc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9825394
- **Project number:** 5IK1RX002662-02
- **Recipient organization:** JAMES H QUILLEN VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** David Ryan
- **Activity code:** IK1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-11-01 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9825394

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9825394, Objective measurement of cognitive systems during effortful listening (5IK1RX002662-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9825394. Licensed CC0.

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