Effect of filter spacing on melody recognition: acoustic and electric hearing.

This paper assesses the effect of filter spacing on melody recognition by normal-hearing (NH) and cochlear implant (CI) subjects. A new semitone filter spacing is proposed for music. The quality of melodies processed by the various filter spacings is also evaluated. Results from NH listeners showed nearly perfect melody recognition with only four channels of stimulation, and results from CI users indicated significantly higher scores with a 12-channel semitone spacing compared to the spacing used in their daily processor. The quality of melodies processed by the semitone filter spacing was preferred over melodies processed by the conventional logarithmic filter spacing.