title: Prior exposure to a reverberant listening environment improves speech intelligibility in adult cochlear implant listeners.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goal of this study is to investigate whether prior exposure to reverberant listening environment improves speech intelligibility of adult cochlear implant (CI) users.
  
  
  METHODS
  Six adult CI users participated in this study. Speech intelligibility was measured in five different simulated reverberant listening environments with two different speech corpuses. Within each listening environment, prior exposure was varied by either having the same environment across all trials (blocked presentation) or having different environment from trial to trial (unblocked).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Speech intelligibility decreased as reverberation time increased. Although substantial individual variability was observed, all CI listeners showed an increase in the blocked presentation condition as compared to the unblocked presentation condition for both speech corpuses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Prior listening exposure to a reverberant listening environment improves speech intelligibility in adult CI listeners. Further research is required to understand the underlying mechanism of adaptation to listening environment.
authors: a Department of Electrical Engineering , University of Texas at Dallas , Richardson , TX , USA.|b National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Portland VA Medical Center , OR , USA.|c Department of Otolaryngology , Oregon Health and Science University , Portland , OR , USA.
authors: Nirmal Kumar
authors: NK
authors: Srinivasan
authors: d Callier Advanced Hearing Research Center, University of Texas at Dallas , Richardson , TX , USA.
authors: Emily A
authors: EA
authors: Tobey
authors: a Department of Electrical Engineering , University of Texas at Dallas , Richardson , TX , USA.
authors: Philipos C
authors: PC
authors: Loizou
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003054:Cochlear Implants / Q000523:psychology*; D004777:Environment; D005160:Facility Design and Construction; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013997:Time Factors; D014732:Vibration
keywords: Cochlear implant; Reverberation; Speech intelligibility