Pulse-rate discrimination by cochlear-implant and normal-hearing listeners with and without binaural cues

This paper describes a logatome discrimination test for the assessment of speech perception in cochlear implant users (CI users), based on a multilingual speech database, the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus, which was originally recorded for the comparison of human and automated speech recognition. The logatome discrimination task is based on the presentation of 100 logatome pairs (i.e., nonsense syllables) with balanced representations of alternating “vowel-replacement” and “consonant-replacement” paradigms in order to assess phoneme confusions. Thirteen adult normal hearing listeners and eight adult CI users, including both good and poor performers, were included in the study and completed the test after their speech intelligibility abilities were evaluated with an established sentence test in noise. Furthermore, the discrimination abilities were measured electrophysiologically by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN) as a component of auditory event-related potentials. The results show a clear MMN response only for normal hearing listeners and CI users with good performance, correlating with their logatome discrimination abilities. Higher discrimination scores for vowel-replacement paradigms than for the consonant-replacement paradigms were found. We conclude that the logatome discrimination test is well suited to monitor the speech perception skills of CI users. Due to the large number of available spoken logatome items, the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus appears to provide a useful and powerful basis for further development of speech perception tests for CI users.

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Effect of Chronological Age on Pulse Rate Discrimination in Adult Cochlear-Implant Users

Trends in Hearing ◽

10.1177/23312165211007367 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 233121652110073

Author(s):

Kelly C. Johnson ◽

Zilong Xie ◽

Maureen J. Shader ◽

Paul G. Mayo ◽

Matthew J. Goupell

Keyword(s):

Pulse Rate ◽

Compound Action Potential ◽

Action Potential Amplitude ◽

Growth Functions ◽

Evoked Compound Action Potential ◽

Rate Discrimination ◽

Amplitude Growth ◽

Temporal Pulse ◽

Compound Action Potential Amplitude ◽

Compound Action

Cochlear-implant (CI) users rely heavily on temporal envelope cues to understand speech. Temporal processing abilities may decline with advancing age in adult CI users. This study investigated the effect of age on the ability to discriminate changes in pulse rate. Twenty CI users aged 23 to 80 years participated in a rate discrimination task. They attempted to discriminate a 35% rate increase from baseline rates of 100, 200, 300, 400, or 500 pulses per second. The stimuli were electrical pulse trains delivered to a single electrode via direct stimulation to an apical (Electrode 20), a middle (Electrode 12), or a basal location (Electrode 4). Electrically evoked compound action potential amplitude growth functions were recorded at each of those electrodes as an estimate of peripheral neural survival. Results showed that temporal pulse rate discrimination performance declined with advancing age at higher stimulation rates (e.g., 500 pulses per second) when compared with lower rates. The age-related changes in temporal pulse rate discrimination at higher stimulation rates persisted after statistical analysis to account for the estimated peripheral contributions from electrically evoked compound action potential amplitude growth functions. These results indicate the potential contributions of central factors to the limitations in temporal pulse rate discrimination ability associated with aging in CI users.

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The Effect of Speech and Noise Levels on the Quality Perceived by Cochlear Implant and Normal Hearing Listeners

Speech Communication ◽

10.1016/j.specom.2021.06.001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sara Akbarzadeh ◽

Sungmin Lee ◽

Fei Chen ◽

Chin Tuan-Tan

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Noise Levels

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Alpha EEG Frontal Asymmetries during Audiovisual Perception in Cochlear Implant Users

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.3414/me15-01-0005 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 54 (06) ◽

pp. 500-504 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

A. G. Maglione ◽

A. Scorpecci ◽

P. Malerba ◽

P. Marsella ◽

S. Giannantonio ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Alpha Rhythm ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Audiovisual Perception ◽

Audiovisual Stimuli ◽

The Difference ◽

Eeg Alpha ◽

The One ◽

Hearing Children

SummaryObjectives: The aim of the present study is to investigate the variations of the electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha rhythm in order to measure the appreciation of bilateral and unilateral young cochlear implant users during the observation of a musical cartoon. The cartoon has been modified for the generation of three experimental conditions: one with the original audio, another one with a distorted sound and, finally, a mute version.Methods: The EEG data have been recorded during the observation of the cartoons in the three experimental conditions. The frontal alpha EEG imbalance has been calculated as a measure of motivation and pleasantness to be compared across experimental populations and conditions.Results: The EEG frontal imbalance of the alpha rhythm showed significant variations during the perception of the different cartoons. In particular, the pattern of activation of normal-hearing children is very similar to the one elicited by the bilateral implanted patients. On the other hand, results related to the unilateral subjects do not present significant variations of the imbalance index across the three cartoons.Conclusion: The presented results suggest that the unilateral patients could not appreciate the difference in the audio format as well as bilaterally implanted and normal hearing subjects. The frontal alpha EEG imbalance is a useful tool to detect the differences in the appreciation of audiovisual stimuli in cochlear implant patients.

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Training improves cochlear implant rate discrimination on a psychophysical task

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.4835735 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 135 (1) ◽

pp. 334-341 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Raymond L. Goldsworthy ◽

Robert V. Shannon

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Rate Discrimination ◽

Psychophysical Task

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Rapid learning of minimally different words in five- to six-year-old children: effects of acoustic salience and hearing impairment

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000915000197 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 310-337 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

MARCEL R. GIEZEN ◽

PAOLA ESCUDERO ◽

ANNE E. BAKER

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Hearing Impairment ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Task Demands ◽

Deaf Children ◽

Matching Task ◽

Object Matching ◽

Rapid Learning ◽

Minimal Pairs

AbstractThis study investigates the role of acoustic salience and hearing impairment in learning phonologically minimal pairs. Picture-matching and object-matching tasks were used to investigate the learning of consonant and vowel minimal pairs in five- to six-year-old deaf children with a cochlear implant (CI), and children of the same age with normal hearing (NH). In both tasks, the CI children showed clear difficulties with learning minimal pairs. The NH children also showed some difficulties, however, particularly in the picture-matching task. Vowel minimal pairs were learned more successfully than consonant minimal pairs, particularly in the object-matching task. These results suggest that the ability to encode phonetic detail in novel words is not fully developed at age six and is affected by task demands and acoustic salience. CI children experience persistent difficulties with accurately mapping sound contrasts to novel meanings, but seem to benefit from the relative acoustic salience of vowel sounds.

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