Dr. Valter Ciocca

Valter Ciocca completed his undergraduate studies in Experimental Psychology at the University of Padua (Italy). He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Psychology at McGill University under the guidance of Albert Bregman, with a thesis on the application of auditory scene analysis principles to speech perception. In 1990, he took a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Sussex, where he investigated the effects of auditory grouping on pitch perception under the guidance of Chris Darwin. In 1992, he joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Hong Kong University, where he applied his knowledge of auditory perception and speech science to the study of Cantonese speech and of lexical tones. He extended his research to the study of populations of listeners and speakers with communication disorders (individuals with cerebral palsy and hearing impairments, including cochlear implant users), as well as adults with normal communication abilities and typically developing children. In 2007, he became Director of the School of Audiology and Speech Sciences at UBC, a role he continued in until 2017. His current research projects include the perception of the illusory continuation  of interrupted sounds through louder noise and through short gaps of silence by listeners with normal hearing and by cochlear implant users; speech perception by listeners with hearing loss; perceptual evaluation of voice quality and intelligibility; perception and production of speech by people with neurogenic communication disorders.

Research Interests

The perception of the illusory continuation  of interrupted sounds through louder noise and through short gaps of silence by listeners with normal hearing and by cochlear implant users; speech perception by listeners with hearing loss; perceptual evaluation of voice quality and intelligibility; perception and production of speech by people with neurogenic communication disorders.