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Speech Perception Assessment Laboratory
Lisa Lucks Mendel, PhD is professor and associate dean of Graduate Studies in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She joined the faculty in 2001 and is a licensed audiologist and hearing aid dispenser in Tennessee. Dr. Lucks Mendel received her BSEd and MEd in Speech Pathology and Audiology from the University of Georgia and her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She taught and conducted research at Pennsylvania State University as a visiting assistant professor and served on the faculty at the University of Mississippi from 1989-2001, where she was a tenured associate professor, associate director of the Center for Speech and Hearing Research in the National Center for Physical Acoustics and coordinator of Audiology. She was elected Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) in 1998, and has served on the National Advisory Committee for the Audiology Praxis exam since 2009. Dr. Lucks Mendel is co-author of the textbook Audiologic Assessment and Management and Speech Perception Assessment. She currently directs the Speech Perception Assessment Laboratory (SPAL) in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
Research Interests Dr. Lucks Mendel’s principal research concentration is on speech perception assessment issues for individuals who have normal hearing and hearing impairments. Her research focuses on ways to validate traditional speech recognition test materials as legitimate and useful methods of outcome assessment. This area of interest is also extended to National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research involved in developing machine-learning algorithms to tune hearing instruments (e.g., cochlear implants) based on individuals’ hearing characteristics and speech production errors. The SPAL is also focused on the evaluation of various tools and procedures used to assess speech understanding for their validity and reliability in different listening situations. Lucks Mendel is particularly interested in studying listeners’ speech understanding in noise in native and nonnative speakers of English. Her previous research conducted at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit focused on ways to improve speech intelligibility for military divers.
Current Research and Applications The focus of the SPAL is the accurate assessment of speech perception by individuals with normal hearing and those with hearing impairment with specific emphasis on the evaluation of the validity and reliability of the various tools and procedures used in clinical practice. Dr. Lucks Mendel is currently creating new speech and word recognition tests for Spanish-speaking children. This is a very unique assessment technique because it can be administered by English-speaking or Spanish-speaking clinicians. In addition, her research focuses on ways to improve how cochlear implants are tuned for listeners with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. She is working collaboratively with the Institute for Intelligent Systems and engineers to develop more objective ways to make meaningful adjustments in cochlear implant maps based on individuals’ speech production errors and their neurophysiologic correlates. In another interesting study recently conducted in the SPAL, speech perception was assessed using surgical masks to evaluate how visual cues (or the lack thereof) assist in speech understanding in medical environments. The products of Dr. Lucks Mendel’s research are highly practical and can be used by clinicians in many different clinical settings.
Future Endeavors In the future, Dr. Lucks Mendel plans to continue the development of Spanish speech perception tests and her research assessing speech perception in Spanish-speaking listeners. She also plans to continue her work with cochlear implant recipients, evaluating their speech production errors to assist in tuning their devices. The exploration of ways to improve cochlear implant tuning is of particular interest to her. Research in the SPAL will continue to focus on speech perception assessments in a variety of
conditions and situations, particularly those that focus on speech in noise.
Student Involvement Many research opportunities are available to students in the SPAL. Depending on their desired amount of involvement, students can participate in research in many different ways. Dr. Lucks Mendel welcomes students from all different levels of research experience to participate in her lab. All of the projects She oversees allow students to learn more about the research topics being studied, while also developing skills they can apply
to their clinical practice. Dr. Lucks Mendel is open to new ideas that are developed from students’ specific areas of interest.
Publication Spotlight 1. Mendel, L.L., Lee, S., Pousson, M., Patro, C.,
MSrley, S., Banerjee, B., Najnin, S. & Kapourchali, M.H. (2017). Corpus of deaf speech for acoustic and speech production research. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America, 142 (1), EL102-107. 2. Patro, C. & Mendel, L.L. (2016). Role of contextual cues on the perception of spectrally reduced interrupted speech. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America, 140(2), 1336-1345. 3. Mendel, L.L. & Widner, H. (2016). Speech perception in noise for bilingual listeners with normal hearing. International
Journal of Audiology, 55 (2),126-134. 4. Mendel, L.L. (2008). Current considerations in pediatric speech audiometry. International Journal of Audiology, 47, 546-553. 5. Mendel, L.L. (2007). Objective and subjective hearing aid assessment outcomes. American Journal of Audiology, 16, 118-129.
