Helen E Cullington1, Fan-Gang Zeng. 1. South of England Cochlear Implant Centre, Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. h.cullington@soton.ac.uk
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: This project assessed electroacoustic benefit for speech recognition with a competing talker. DESIGN: Using a cochlear implant subject with normal hearing in the contralateral ear, the contribution of low-pass and high-pass natural sound to speech recognition was systematically measured. RESULTS: High-frequency sound did not improve performance, but low-frequency sound did, even when unintelligible and limited to frequencies below 150 Hz. CONCLUSIONS: The low-frequency sound assists separation of the two talkers, presumably using the fundamental frequency cue. Extrapolating this finding to regular cochlear implant users may suggest that using a hearing aid on the contralateral ear will improve performance, even with limited residual hearing.
OBJECTIVES: This project assessed electroacoustic benefit for speech recognition with a competing talker. DESIGN: Using a cochlear implant subject with normal hearing in the contralateral ear, the contribution of low-pass and high-pass natural sound to speech recognition was systematically measured. RESULTS: High-frequency sound did not improve performance, but low-frequency sound did, even when unintelligible and limited to frequencies below 150 Hz. CONCLUSIONS: The low-frequency sound assists separation of the two talkers, presumably using the fundamental frequency cue. Extrapolating this finding to regular cochlear implant users may suggest that using a hearing aid on the contralateral ear will improve performance, even with limited residual hearing.
Authors: Christina L Runge; Jamie Jensen; David R Friedland; Ruth Y Litovsky; Sergey Tarima Journal: J Am Acad Audiol Date: 2011-10 Impact factor: 1.664