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- Title
Melodic Contour Identification and Music Perception by Cochlear Implant Users.
- Authors
Galvin, John J.; Fu, Qian‐Jie; Shannon, Robert V.
- Abstract
Research and outcomes with cochlear implants (CIs) have revealed a dichotomy in the cues necessary for speech and music recognition. CI devices typically transmit 16–22 spectral channels, each modulated slowly in time. This coarse representation provides enough information to support speech understanding in quiet and rhythmic perception in music, but not enough to support speech understanding in noise or melody recognition. Melody recognition requires some capacity for complex pitch perception, which in turn depends strongly on access to spectral fine structure cues. Thus, temporal envelope cues are adequate for speech perception under optimal listening conditions, while spectral fine structure cues are needed for music perception. In this paper, we present recent experiments that directly measure CI users’ melodic pitch perception using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task. While normal-hearing (NH) listeners’ performance was consistently high across experiments, MCI performance was highly variable across CI users. CI users’ MCI performance was significantly affected by instrument timbre, as well as by the presence of a competing instrument. In general, CI users had great difficulty extracting melodic pitch from complex stimuli. However, musically experienced CI users often performed as well as NH listeners, and MCI training in less-experienced subjects greatly improved performance. With fixed constraints on spectral resolution, such as occurs with hearing loss or an auditory prosthesis, training and experience can provide considerable improvements in music perception and appreciation.
- Subjects
COCHLEAR implants; HEARING aids; MUSIC; SPEECH; INTONATION (Phonetics)
- Publication
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2009, Vol 1169, p518
- ISSN
0077-8923
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04551.x