Research Interests

I am interested in conducting empirical research that leads to a better understanding of perceptual and cognitive processes with the aims of using this information to optimize the interaction between humans and machines. I have two tracks of research that follow this goal: psychoacoustics research to provide information that can be used to help improve the design of auditory displays, and user-centered design projects that have resulted in design prototypes based on user analysis.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 2009. Engineering Psychology program, in Dr. Bruce Walker's Sonification Lab.

Masters of Science, Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 2006.

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Denison University, Granville, OH, 2003.

Curriculum Vitae

Available upon request.

Current Professional Activities

My graduate research focused on the use of bone-conduction headsets.

In my research at Georgia Tech, I explored the use of digital filters to adjust for the bone-conduction pathway. I also investigated imaging of sound waves traveling through the head, and how that can be used to predict speech intelligibility of signals traveling through bone-conduction transducers.

As of Summer 2009, I have completed my Ph.D. and am currently doing a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Art Wingfield's lab at Brandeis University. In this position I am investigating speech comprehension and aging.

Publications (Journal Article, Proceedings, and Theses)

Stanley, R.M., & Walker, B.N. (2009). Intelligibility of bone-conducted speech at different locations compared to air-conducted speech. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2009), San Antonio, TX (19-23 October).

Stanley, R.M. (2006). Measurement and Validation of Bone-Conduction Adjustment Functions in Virtual 3D Audio Displays. Doctoral dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. [PDF]

Stanley, R.M., & Walker, B.N. (2008). Towards a transfer function used to adjust audio for bone-conduction transducers. Proceedings of the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, 29 June-4 July 2008, Paris, France.

Walker, B. N., Stanley, R. M., Przekwas, A., Tan, X. G., Chen, Z. J., Yang, H. W., Wilkerson, P., Harrand, V., Chancey, C., & Houtsma, A. J. M. (2007). High fidelity modeling and experimental evaluation of binaural bone conduction communication devices. Proceedings of the 19th International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2007), 2-7 September 2007, Madrid Spain. [PDF]

Stanley, R.M. (2006). Toward Adapting Spatial Audio Displays For Use With Bone Conduction: The Cancellation of Bone-conducted and Air-conducted Sound Waves. Master's thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. [PDF]

Stanley, R.M., & Walker, B.N. (2006). Lateralization of sounds using bone-conduction headsets. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2006), San Francisco, CA (16-20 October) pp. 1571-1575. [PDF]

Eriksdottir, E., Lindsay, J., Nees, M., & Stanley, R.M. (2006). User preferences for auditory device-driven menu navigation. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2006), San Francisco, CA (16-20 October) pp. 2076 -2078.

Walker, B. N., & Stanley, R. M. (2005). Thresholds of audibility for bone-conduction headsets. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2005), Limerick, Ireland (6-10 July) pp 218-222. [PDF]

Walker, B. N., Stanley, R. M., Iyer, N., Simpson, B. D., & Brungart, D. S. (2005). Evaluation of bone-conduction headsets for use in multitalker communication environments. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2005), Orlando, FL (26-30 September) pp. 1615-1619. [PDF]

Walker, B. N., Stanley, R. M., & Lindsay, J. (2005). Task, user characteristics, and environment interact to affect mobile audio design. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Auditory Displays for Mobile Context-Aware Systems at Pervasive2005, Munich, Germany (11 May). [PDF]

Walker, B. N., & Stanley, R.M. (2004). Eye movement and reaction time are both important in assessment of dialog box usability. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES2004), New Orleans, LA (20-24 September) pp 798-802. [PDF]

Stanley, R.M., & Matthews, N. (2004). A comparison of cues for auditory motion judgments. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Abstracts, p114, C131.

Stanley, R.M. & Matthews, N. (2003). Invalid cues impair auditory motion sensitivity, Perception, 32(6), 731-740. Abstract PubMed - MEDLINE Index # 12892433

User-Centered Design Experience

FAA Airport Design Competition: Runway Safety/Incursion Challenge

• Acted as human factors specialist on interdisciplinary team designing interfaces to reduce runway incursions.Won second place in national competition.

Sound Design for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

• Designed sounds to communicate status of engine, threats, and weapons in multiple unmanned aerial vehicles traversing through virtual 3D auditory space.

Web Usability Analysis

• Provided heuristic evaluation of a website for older adults with a team of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Student Chapter members.

Energy Consumption Interface

• Acted as human factors specialist on interdisciplinary team designing an interface to help home dwellers to become aware of and reduce their energy consumption.

Music Navigation Interface

• Acted as human factors specialist on interdisciplinary team to create an interface for managing the categorization and playback of large digital collections of music.

My personal interests include my family, dogs, music listening, modeling any type of transportation device, woodworking, photography, electronics/gadgets, spending time outdoors, jogging, cars, mountain biking & cycling, and travel.