Central masking with bilateral cochlear implants.
Across bilateral cochlear implants, contralateral threshold shift has been investigated as a function of electrode difference between the masking and probe electrodes. For contralateral electric masking, maximum threshold elevations occurred when the position of the masker and probe electrode was approximately place-matched across ears. The amount of masking diminished with increasing masker-probe electrode separation. Place-dependent masking occurred in both sequentially implanted ears, and was not affected by the masker intensity or the time delay from the masker onset. When compared to previous contralateral masking results in normal hearing, the similarities between place-dependent central masking patterns suggest comparable mechanisms of overlapping excitation in the central auditory nervous system.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, California 92617, USA. paytonl@uci.edu
Payton
P
Lin
Thomas
T
Lu
Fan-Gang
FG
Zeng
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000523:psychology*; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D006801:Humans; D008144:Loudness Perception; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013997:Time Factors