Kate Gfeller: Lend Me Your (Bionic) Ears

Music is an enormous social phenomenon and it comes in as the second most searched for topic on the google search engine. Music and sound are a type of auditory collage that connects us to the personal memories and the experiences of our lives. When a recipient of a cochlear implant regains the ability to hear, although the quality is degraded, what are the complex responses of the brain when and what are the social experiences someone goes through with this technological addition to their senses? Dr. Kate Gfeller is director of the Music Therapy Program in the School of Music at the University of Iowa and the principal investigator of the Music Perception Project for the Iowa Cochlear Implant Team. She will explain the technology of the cochlear implant and discuss how people adapt to a new world of sound.