At the 1-day workshop hosted by ORCA Labs at the WS Audiology Headquarter in Lynge, 32 scientists from 16 different universities and companies spread across the world met to exchange, discuss and challenge scientific findings.

To provide a fresh input, ORCA Labs had invited two researchers from ‘outside’ the field of hearing science to present: Patricia Paggio, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen presented how hand-gestures are important to convey meaning and can act to make certain words more audible, even when only listening to the speech without seeing the speaker. Kristian Mortensen, Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, introduced ethnomethodological conversation analysis of the, often subtle and almost unnoticeable, behavioral signs we use during everyday interactions with other people. He especially focused on mishearing/misunderstanding, which is an especially prominent complaint raised by people with hearing loss.

The participants also brought examples of their own work, presented in 20 posters and 2 talks. Although the overall focus was Communication in Hearing Science, the topics presented were diverse and ranged from developing material to better counsel people with listening difficulties on communication strategies over predicting turn-taking events, conversation partners or conversation success from behavior to how head movements are affected by the number and position of conversation partners.

ORCA Labs would like to thank all the researchers who contributed to making it a workshop full of lively discussions and knowledge exchange.