title: Sensitivity to isolated and concurrent intensity and fundamental frequency increments by cochlear implant users under natural listening conditions.
abstract: Sensitivity to acoustic cues in cochlear implant (CI) listening under natural conditions is a potentially complex interaction between a number of simultaneous factors, and may be difficult to predict. In the present study, sensitivity was measured under conditions that approximate those of natural listening. Synthesized words having increases in intensity or fundamental frequency (F0) in a middle stressed syllable were presented in soundfield to normal-hearing listeners and to CI listeners using their everyday speech processors and programming. In contrast to the extremely fine sensitivity to electrical current observed when direct stimulation of single electrodes is employed, difference limens (DLs) for intensity were larger for the CI listeners by a factor of 2.4. In accord with previous work, F0 DLs were larger by almost one order of magnitude. In a second experiment, it was found that the presence of concurrent intensity and F0 increments reduced the mean DL to half that of either cue alone for both groups of subjects, indicating that both groups combine concurrent cues with equal success. Although sensitivity to either cue in isolation was not related to word recognition in CI users, the listeners having lower combined-cue thresholds produced better word recognition scores.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 28208, USA.
authors.forename: Cheryl F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Eric W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Healy
authors.forename: Allen A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Montgomery
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003463:Cues; D004056:Differential Threshold; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008144:Loudness Perception; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception