Axel Ahrens

Project title

The Connection between Auditory Perception and Movement Kinematics

What is your project about?

The project investigates how people use movements, such as head, eye, and body movements, to improve their ability to understand speech, especially in noisy and socially complex situations. The aim is to distinguish between movements driven by social norms and those that actively support auditory perception. By combining virtual environments, motion tracking, behavioral experiments, and computational modeling, the project will uncover how movement influences hearing. The results can contribute to the development of better hearing technologies and strategies, helping people with hearing loss participate more easily in social conversations.

How did you become interested in your particular field of research?

More than 20 years ago, I started working as an audiologist, assessing hearing and fitting hearing aids. Through these interactions, I gained a deep understanding of the challenges faced by people with hearing loss and those using hearing aids. To better support individuals with hearing impairments, we need a deeper understanding of how we hear and how we communicate. This knowledge can then be translated into novel hearing technologies that more effectively address their everyday needs.

What are the scientific challenges and perspectives in your project?

The central research challenge of the project is to disentangle and understand the different motivations behind human movements during communication. Movements are shaped both by social norms and by the need to optimize auditory perception, and these factors are difficult to isolate from one another in realistic situations. At the same time, existing models of hearing largely fail to incorporate movement as an active component. The project addresses these challenges by combining controlled experiments, virtual environments, and advanced computational modeling. The perspective is to generate new fundamental knowledge about the interaction between perception and movement, which can be translated into improved hearing technologies and more effective communication strategies.

What is your estimate of the impact, which your project may have to society in the long term?

In the long term, the project has the potential to create significant societal impact by improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss. By generating new knowledge about how movement and auditory perception interact in social situations, the research can form the foundation for more advanced and user-adaptive hearing technologies. This can make it easier to actively participate in conversations and reduce social isolation. In addition, the findings may contribute to improved counseling and training in communication strategies. Overall, the project can strengthen the inclusion of people with hearing impairments and potentially reduce the cognitive and social consequences associated with hearing loss.

Which impact do you expect the Sapere Aude programme will have on your career as a researcher?

Being awarded the Sapere Aude grant marks a decisive step in my research career and enables me to establish myself as an independent research leader. The grant provides the necessary resources to build a strong and ambitious research environment with a PhD student and a postdoctoral researcher. At the same time, it strengthens my international visibility and opportunities to expand strategic collaborations. The academic freedom that comes with the grant allows me to pursue an innovative and high-risk research idea, which can position me as a key researcher within hearing and perceptual research in the long term.