Dr José Alcántara

Principal Researcher

José Alcántara received a B.Sc in 1984 from the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in Audiology (1985) and a PhD (1991), from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Melbourne.

As a Graduate Research Assistant and later a Research Fellow in the Department of Otolaryngology, he worked on the evaluation of speech processing strategies for tactile communication aids, cochlear implants and digital hearing aids. His PhD was on the development and evaluation of habilitation strategies for tactile speech communication.

In 1992, he was awarded a post-doctoral travelling fellowship, from the National Health and Medical Research Council, to work with Professor Brian Moore at the University of Cambridge.

He is currently a University Lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology, at the University of Cambridge.

His primary area of research is the role of low-level auditory processing, up to and including the primary and association auditory cortices, to the process of speech perception. His research includes the psychoacoustics of normal and hearing-impaired individuals, and children with developmental disorders, such as autism and Asperger's syndrome, as it relates to the perception of speech in background noise. His other research interests include the neurobiology of speech perception, and digital signal processing algorithms to alleviate speech in noise perception difficulties.

He is a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he holds the offices of College Lecturer in Experimental Psychology, and Director of Studies in Natural Sciences (Biological). He is also an External Director of Studies in Biological Sciences for Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

He is a member of the Audiological Society of Australia, British Society of Audiology, the Acoustical Society of America, the British Society for Neuroscience and the International Society for Autism Research.

His other interests include music and rowing.

Publications

Weisblatt, E.J., & Alcántara, J.I. (submitted). Auditory Perception in Autism: A Review of Research and New Directions. Submitted to Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Moore, B.C.J., Marriage, J.E., Alcántara, J.I., & Glasberg, B.R. (in press). Comparison of two adaptive procedures for fitting a multi-channel compression hearing aid. International Journal of Audiology.

Sek, A., Alcántara, J.I., Moore, B.C.J, & Kluk, K. (in press). Development of a fast method for determining psychophysical tuning curves. International Journal of Audiology.

Moore, B.C.J., Stainsby, T.H. and Alcántara, J.I., & Kuehnel, V. (2004). The effect on speech intelligibility of varying compression time constants in a digital hearing aid. International Journal of Audiology, 43, pp.399-409.

Alcántara, J.I., Weisblatt, E.J., Moore, B.C.J., & Bolton, P.F. (2004). Speech perception in high-functioning subjects with autism or Asperger's syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, pp.1107-1114.

Marriage, J.E., Moore, B.C.J., & Alcántara, J.I. (2004). Comparison of three procedures for initital fitting of compression hearing aids. III. Inexperienced versus experienced users. International Journal of Audiology, 43, pp.198-210.

Alcántara, J.I., Moore, B.C.J., & Marriage, J.E. (2004). Comparison of three procedures for initital fitting of compression hearing aids. II. Experienced users, fitted unilaterally. International Journal of Audiology, 43, pp.3-14.

Alcántara, J.I., Moore, B.C.J., Glasberg, B.R., Wilkinson, A.J.K., & Jorasz, U. (2003). Phase effects in masking: within versus across channel processes. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114, pp.2158-2166.

Plaisted, K.C., Saksida, L., Alcántara, J.I., & Weisblatt, E.J. (2003). Towards an understanding of the mechanisms of weak central coherence: experiments in configural learning and auditory perception. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 358 (1430), pp.375-386.

Alcántara, J.I., Moore, B.C.J., Kühnel, V., & Launer, S. (2003). Evaluation of a noise reduction system in a commercial digital hearing aid. International Journal of Audiology, 42, pp.34-42.