Mary Florentine is a Matthews Distinguished Professor at
Northeastern University specialising in
psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how humans perceive various sounds. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated wit ...
with interests in models of
hearing
Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psycholog ...
(normal and impaired), non-native speech comprehension in
background noise
Background noise or ambient noise is any sound other than the sound being monitored (primary sound). Background noise is a form of noise pollution or interference. Background noise is an important concept in setting noise levels.
Background n ...
,
cross-cultural Cross-cultural may refer to
*cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis
*cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate
*any of vari ...
attitudes towards
noise
Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...
, and
hearing loss
Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to Hearing, hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to Language ...
prevention. Her primary collaborator is
Søren Buus.
Biography
Career
Florentine completed her undergraduate degree in
experimental psychology
Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...
at Northeastern University in 1973. She continued her graduate study at Northeastern University, earning a master's degree in experimental psychology and
auditory perception in 1975. After some time spent studying pre-doctoral
electronic engineering
Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
at the
Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences.
Establis ...
in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and at the
Audiology
Audiology (from Latin , "to hear"; and from Greek , ''-logia'') is a branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. Audiologists treat those with hearing loss and proactively prevent related damage. By employing various ...
and
ENT
Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant.
The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...
Department at
Copenhagen University Hospital
Copenhagen University Hospital is a conglomerate of several hospitals in Region Hovedstaden and Region Sjælland in Denmark, together with the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences a ...
in
Denmark
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, song_type = National and royal anthem
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, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
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...
, she completed her PhD at Northeastern University in 1978. She then went on to work as a post-doctoral research fellow at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT) in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
,
. Since then, she has also worked as a visiting scientist at the
National Centre for Scientific Research
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...
in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
; the
Osaka University
, abbreviated as , is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's former Imperial Universities and a Designated National University listed as a "Top Type" university in the Top Global University Project. ...
in
Toyonaka
is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on October 15, 1936.
Geography Climate
Toyonaka has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The averag ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
; and, on several occasions, at the acoustics laboratory at the
Danish Technical University
The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...
.
In 1980 she returned to Northeastern University as the director of the Communication Research Laboratory and in 1986 commenced a long-term collaboration with her husband,
Søren Buus, at the Hearing Research Laboratory until he died in 2004. At Northeastern University, Florentine is an effective and popular teacher, securing the Excellence-in-Teaching Award only a few years after starting her faculty position. Her academic work has also appealed to more general audiences and she has been interviewed for ''
TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', ''
Redbook
''Redbook'' is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the " Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publication as of January 2019 and now operates an article-comprise ...
'' and
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
’s ''
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
''. Florentine co-edited and (co-)wrote a few chapters in the recently published textbook ''Loudness (Springer Handbook of Auditory Research)'', which explains some conceptual thinking relating to loudness, issues of loudness study and measurement, hearing and hearing loss models, and physiological effects of loud sounds.
Personal
Florentine was born in
Nutley,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and was the eldest in a family with five children. She moved to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts, to take up her undergraduate study, which was fully supported by a merit grant, and has lived there ever since, except for brief periods of study and work abroad. While abroad, she met her husband Søren Buus, who also became her primary collaborator, and they married in 1980. They have one daughter, born in 1987.
Notable work
Softness Imperception
Softness Imperception (SI) is a term coined by Florentine and colleagues to describe the inability to hear quiet sounds that are audible to normal listeners. This phenomenon is particularly common among people with
cochlea
The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory org ...
r hearing loss. When a person with SI hears a sound at
threshold, it sounds louder than a sound at threshold would do for a normal listener. Therefore, people with hearing loss may find softer sounds more intrusive when fitted with
hearing aid
A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers su ...
s that simply amplify all soft sounds to threshold.
Binaural Loudness Summation
Florentine's most recent work has been on
binaural loudness summation, and her research with
Michael J. Epstein
Michael J. Epstein (born 1976), is an American filmmaker, musician, writer, and auditory scientist. Epstein has also spoken and written about the impact of local media on the arts, music service gatekeeping, effective social networking, and crowd ...
has indicated that, in more
ecologically valid experiments, the binaural loudness summation ratio is found to be significantly lower than previously thought.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Florentine, Mary
Living people
American women psychologists
American science writers
Northeastern University alumni
American cognitive scientists
Osaka University faculty
American women academics
Year of birth missing (living people)