Music perception in adult cochlear implant recipients.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate musical perception in adult cochlear implant (CI) recipients, i.e. perceptual accuracy for pitch, timbre, rhythmic patterns and song identification.


METHODS
Twenty-nine adult patients were included in this transverse single-center study. Evaluative measures included tests assessing ability to discriminate pitch, rhythm and timbre and to identify nursery songs with and without verbal cues. Performance scores were correlated with duration of deafness, duration of implantation, speech discrimination and musical perception skills.


RESULTS
A total of 38% of patients reported that they did not enjoy listening to music with their device and 86% presented lower scores of listening habits after implantation. We found positive correlations between musical background and pitch identification and identification of nursery songs played by piano. We also found positive correlations between speech discrimination and rhythm, timbre and identification of nursery songs with verbal cues.


CONCLUSIONS
Trends in the patterns of correlation between speech and music perception suggest that music patterns are differentially accessible to CI users. New processing strategies may improve this.
Department of Otolaryngology, Purpan Hospital, Toulouse, France. marianacleal@hotmail.com
Mariana C
MC
Leal
Young Je
YJ
Shin
Marie-Laurence
ML
Laborde
Marie-Noëlle
MN
Calmels
Sebastien
S
Verges
Stéphanie
S
Lugardon
Sandrine
S
Andrieu
Olivier
O
Deguine
Bernard
B
Fraysse
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D010898:Pitch Perception; D013067:Speech Perception