title: Bimodal hearing and speech perception with a competing talker.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of the study was to investigate the influence of bimodal stimulation upon hearing ability for speech recognition in the presence of a single competing talker.
  
  
  METHODS
  Speech recognition was measured in 3 listening conditions: hearing aid (HA) alone, cochlear implant (CI) alone, and both devices together (CI + HA). To examine the use of low-frequency cues, the competing masker voice was manipulated with respect to fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies. Twelve implanted adults were included in the study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Group results revealed only a relatively small benefit of CI + HA compared with the CI alone. A detailed analysis of errors, which was assumed to be an indicator for the release from masking, revealed that this benefit was not attributed to improved target-masker segregation. The variable determined to be responsible for segregating target and masker talkers was a large difference in F0 of the voices. This held true for all CI alone, HA alone, and CI + HA listening conditions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bimodal hearing improved overall speech recognition of both the target and the masker. No evidence for better target-masker separation with bimodal fitting could be found.
authors.affiliation: Jean-Uhrmacher-Institute for Clinical ENT-Research, University of Cologne, Germany. verena.pyschny@uk-koeln.de
authors.forename: Verena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pyschny
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Landwehr
authors.forename: Moritz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walger
authors.forename: Hasso
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: von Wedel
authors.forename: Hartmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Meister
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006310:Hearing Aids; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult