Sid Bacon

Sid P. Bacon, a major contributor to our understanding of auditory temporal processing, died on July 11, 2013 after a courageous 19-month battle with pancreatic cancer.  Sid was born in Kansas City on July 24, 1955 and raised in Salina, Kansas by his adoptive parents, Marge and Bob Bacon.  He completed a bachelor's degree in speech and hearing sciences in 1977 and a master's degree in audiology in 1979 from the University of Kansas.  After completing his master's degree, Sid spent six months as a visiting student with Walt Jesteadt at the Boys Town National Research Hospital (BTNRH) in Omaha, Nebraska before enrolling as a doctoral student in experimental psychology with Neal Viemeister at the University of Minnesota.  Sid returned to Boys Town as a postdoctoral fellow in 1985, but spent the beginning of that time with Brian Moore at Cambridge.  He moved to Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Hearing & Speech Sciences in 1986 and to Arizona State University as an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in 1988.  Sid later served as department chair, as dean of the Division of Natural Sciences and as Associate Vice President at Arizona State.  He was a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

At the University of Kansas, Sid was part of an active group of students that included Lynne Marshall, Marjorie Leek and Israel Raz.  As a visiting student at VTNRH, he was part of the initial research group that included Charles Watson, Eric Javel, Donna Neff, Edward Walsh and JoAnn McGee.  Sid helped collect a large set of forward masking data before moving on to the University of Minnesota.  

During his graduate studies at Minnesota, Sid focused his research interests on temporal processing.  This work involved investigations of forward masking, modulation detection in normal and hearing-impaired listeners, and intensity coding.  His research on forward masking indicated that frequency selectivity, a fundamental characteristic of hearing, is a dynamic process in which the auditory system can increase its selectivity depending on the temporal and spectral characteristics of the acoustic environment.  This work led to his Ph.D. dissertation and to several important papers that were published in JASA.  While at Minnesota, Sid was a vital and stimulating student and colleague who demonstrated the creativity, intelligence and independence that assured his success in auditory science.  Early in his time there, he met Cathy Kittelson, his future wife, at a university retreat.  

In 1985, Sid moved to Cambridge, England with Cathy and daughter Laura to begin an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship.  He continued studying the development of auditory frequency selectivity over time.  He showed that the sharpness of tuning, as measured using psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs), depended on the temporal position of the signal within the masker, the highest sharpness being observed when the signal was temporally centered in the masker.  In another study, Sid examined the mechanisms underlying one form of the "overshoot" effect, namely that the threshold for detecting a signal in simultaneous masking declines as the signal onset is delayed relative to the onset of a longer duration masker.  Sid, together with Brian Moore, proposed the "transient masking" hypothesis, that transient responses to the masker can impair detection of transient responses to the signal, even when the transients occur in different peripheral channels.  This was an early example of an across-channel process.

Sid returned to BTNRH in Omaha for the reaminder of his postdoctoral fellowship, where he continued to work on the development of auditory frequency selectivity over time, using a forward masking paradigm, and also gained experience in single-unit auditory physiology.  In 1986, Sid moved to Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, as Assistant Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences.  During his two years there, he gained experience as a mentor of graduate students and collaborated with Wes Grantham on some of the earliest studies of modulation masking, work that led to the development of models of modulation processing based on modulation filter banks.  

Sid moved to Arizona State University as an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science and was promoted to Full Professor in 1992.  During his 21 years at ASU, he served as an effective mentor for 11 master's students, 6 doctoral students and 13 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom contributed to his ongoing research program focused on temporal processing in normal and impaired auditory systems, the role of compression in auditory processing and electric-acoustic hearing.  He contributed to the university as Department Chair, Dean of Natural Sciences and Associate Vice President for the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development.  He also contributed to profession organizations as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and Editor for Hearing of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Sid was diagnosed with cancer in January 2012.  Sid faced his final illness with grace, dignity, and style.  During the 19 months that he fought the cancer, he kept an online journal (see <http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sidbacon>) with more than 500 daily entries describing his feelings, his activites and his devotion to his family as well as all of the medical ups and downs he faced.  His direct approach to the problems and consistent upbeat attitude serve as a model and inspiration for all of us.

Sid faced his final illness with grace, dignity, and style. During the 19 months that he fought the cancer, he kept a regular journal, describing his feelings, his activities, his consistent upbeat attitude, his devotion to his family and theirs to him, as well as all of the medical ups and downs he faced during "this journey." His journal (see http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sidbacon) drew hundreds of followers, with more than 70,000 visits, and well over 10,000 entries of support in the guestbook. Sid never failed to end each of his postings with an expression of deep gratitude to all who were sending their words of encouragement, to the collective support group who came to be known as "Team Bacon."

Although one could see through his writings that Sid sometimes became a bit discouraged, this was the exception, and he never expressed any self pity or gloom. On the contrary, he wrote that he had learned during his illness to focus more on the pleasures of the moment, the value of family and friends. Many of the guest entries expressed their gratitude that Sid had provided so much inspiration and reminded us all of what is really important in life.

An illustration of the positive and selfless inspiration Sid provided is captured in an essay he wrote one day in the journal (only two of the stanzas are reprinted here):

Why me? …

When you are sick you have plenty of time to contemplate. This is especially true when you have cancer and are relegated to spending time at home, in doctors’offices, at chemo clinics, etc. At this point in my treatment, although I have plenty of good days, I’m not 100% and I can’t possibly work full-pace for the entire day. So, I have time to think. One of the things I think about is:

Why me?

Why did I get to marry my best friend … someone who has been my constant companion for over 30 years of married life? Why do I still get to benefit from her constant love and friendship? Why me? Why am I so lucky?

Why have our children grown up to be the people they have grown up to be … individuals who are kind, compassionate, loving, funny, giving? Why have we had and continue to have such a wonderful life with them, even when we live apart? Why am I so lucky? Why me?

Sid Bacon was a unique individual who has touched so many people in so many ways during his life, career, and struggle with cancer. He will be sorely missed by all. As one friend posted in the guestbook upon learning that Sid had died: "Oh, SP...how you lived, played, loved, mentored and died. You did it all so brilliantly. Rest now."

In 1986 Sid was offered and accepted a position as Assistant Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Hearing and Speech Department Sciences at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Although he spent only two years at Vanderbilt (1986-1988), he established an active research program, mentored or co-mentored five graduate students working on various research projects, and taught graduate level courses in Psychacoustics. One of his most notable achievements while at Vanderbilt was his pioneering work on modulation masking. In a seminal JASA paper published in 1989 (coinciding with similar independent findings published by Houtgast the same year) Sid demonstrated that the detection of modulation of a broadband signal depended in a systematic way on the rate of modulation of a simultaneously presented broadband modulated masker. The data suggested "that there are channels in the auditory system which are tuned for the detection of modulation frequency, much like there are channels (critical bands or auditory filters) tuned for the detection of spectral frequency." Sid published two more papers on this topic based on his work at Vanderbilt, and they formed an important basis for later extensive work by Torsten Dau and others who proposed models of modulation processing based on modulation filter banks.  Although Vanderbilt tried to convince Sid to stay in the South, the call of the West was apparently too strong for the Bacons to resist.

In 1985, Sid Bacon visited Brian Moore's laboratory in Cambridge as a fresh post-doc (Visiting Research Fellow). Remarkably, with a bit of help from Brian Glasberg, he started testing subjects on the same day that he arrived in the lab. He continued the line of work that had been initiated with Neal Viemeister, studying the development of auditory frequency selectivity over time. He showed that the sharpness of tuning, as measured using psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs), depended on the temporal position of the signal within the masker, the highest sharpness being observed when the signal was temporally centered in the masker. In another study, Sid examined the mechanisms underlying one form of the "overshoot" effect, namely that the threshold for detecting a signal in simultaneous masking declines as the signal onset is delayed relative to the onset of a longer duration masker. Sid, together with Brian Moore, proposed the "transient masking" hypothesis, that transient responses to the masker can impair detection of transient responses to the signal, even when the transients occur in different peripheral channels. This was an early example of an across-channel process. Sid spent only about six months in Cambridge in 1985, but the visit resulted in five published papers, including four in JASA. Another significant achievement was that, following training by Brian Glasberg, Sid became an accomplished juggler.

In 1992, Sid returned to Cambridge as a Visiting Professor, this time with his wife Cathy, and his children, Dan and Laura, both of whom were proficient jugglers! During that visit, he made significant further contributions to knowledge about modulation masking (an area of study pioneered by Sid in collaboration with Wes Grantham). Sid also studied the detection and identification of a single amplitude-modulated carrier in a complex sound. The ability to detect the modulation was poorer when the complex sound contained six carriers than when it contained two carriers. Surprisingly, however, the ability to identify which component was modulated was better for a complex with six than with two carriers. To explain this Sid, together with Brian Moore, proposed that, for a six-carrier complex, the modulation served to define uniquely which carrier was different from the rest; subjectively, the modulated carrier segregated from the other carriers. For the two-carrier complex, the modulation of one carrier promoted segregation of the two carriers, but subjects had difficulty deciding which carrier was modulated. This can be thought of as a failure of perceptual "binding". Another important outcome of Sid's visit to Cambridge was that Sid taught Brian Moore how to use hyphens properly.

Sid P. Bacon

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Sid P. Bacon, 57, died July 11, 2013, in Phoenix. He was the son of Robert and Margie Bacon, of Salina, Kan.
 

Sid was a 1973 graduate of Salina Central High School and earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Kansas and a doctorate at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He completed postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge in England and later taught at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., for two years.

He joined the faculty of Arizona State University in 1988 and served for 25 years as a professor, chair of the department of speech and hearing science, dean of natural sciences and associate vice president.

Sid was a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

He is survived by his parents, of Salina; wife, Cathy, and daughter, Laura, both of Phoenix; son, Dan and daughter-in-law, Liz, of San Diego, Calif.; and sister, Su, of Kansas City, Mo.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 20, in Phoenix.

Memorial donations may be made to the Sid P. Bacon Memorial Research Scholarship, in care of the ASU Foundation, Department of Speech and Hearing Science, P.O. Box 870101, Tempe, AZ 85287.

http://salina.com/news/Sid-P--Bacon