Audiology as a science is built on a foundation that includes many different disciplines: electrical engineering, acoustics, medicine, and linguistics, to name but a few. A very important subject area for hearing aid development is psychology and specifically auditory perception. A great contributor to our knowledge about auditory perception is Professor Brian C.J. Moore, Emeritus Professor of Auditory Perception, at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Even if you are unfamiliar with Brian Moore’s contributions to our field, if you have fit, worn, or listened to a hearing aid, you probably have been affected by his work. His influence on Audiology is huge, given his prolific output. In his biography on the University of Cambridge website, it mentions that he has written or edited 19 books and over 700 scientific papers and book chapters (University of Cambridge, 2019).
This month in Canadian Audiologist, the online journal for the Canadian Academy of Audiology (CAA), there is a special edition edited by Marshall Chasin, Steve Aiken, and David Baguley to show appreciation to Brian Moore for his contributions to our field (Chasin et al., 2020). In this edition, there are articles by individuals who have either directly worked with Moore, or who have been influenced by his work. There are discussions about his many interests, his work in the lab, and his contributions to science. There are also some great pictures and personal anecdotes. I was honored to be asked to contribute with an article about Moore’s influence on hearing aid development. I chose to focus on three areas: hearing aid processing delay, amplitude compression systems, and frequency lowering technology. You can read my article about Brian Moore here. This edition of the CAA e-journal gives the readers a lot of insight into his work. It would be worth spending some time with this edition of Canadian Audiologist.
References
Chasin, M., Aiken, S. & Baguley, D. (Eds.). (2020) Thank You Dr. Brian Moore [Special Edition]. Canadian Audiologist 7(4). https://canadianaudiologist.ca/current/
University of Cambridge (2019). Department of Psychology: Professor Brian C.J. Moore. Retrieved from: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/professor_brian_moore