title: Processing of Acoustic Cues in Lexical-Tone Identification by Pediatric Cochlear-Implant Recipients.
abstract: The objective was to investigate acoustic cue processing in lexical-tone recognition by pediatric cochlear-implant (CI) recipients who are native Mandarin speakers.
  
  
  
  Lexical-tone recognition was assessed in pediatric CI recipients and listeners with normal hearing (NH) in 2 tasks. In Task 1, participants identified naturally uttered words that were contrastive in lexical tones. For Task 2, a disyllabic word (yanjing) was manipulated orthogonally, varying in fundamental-frequency (F0) contours and duration patterns. Participants identified each token with the second syllable jing pronounced with Tone 1 (a high level tone) as eyes or with Tone 4 (a high falling tone) as eyeglasses.
  
  
  
  CI participants' recognition accuracy was significantly lower than NH listeners' in Task 1. In Task 2, CI participants' reliance on F0 contours was significantly less than that of NH listeners; their reliance on duration patterns, however, was significantly higher than that of NH listeners. Both CI and NH listeners' performance in Task 1 was significantly correlated with their reliance on F0 contours in Task 2.
  
  
  
  For pediatric CI recipients, lexical-tone recognition using naturally uttered words is primarily related to their reliance on F0 contours, although duration patterns may be used as an additional cue.
authors.affiliation: Center for Devices and Radiological Health, United States Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD.
authors.forename: Shu-Chen
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Hui-Ping
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Center for Devices and Radiological Health, United States Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD.
authors.forename: Nelson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, TaiwanTaipei Medical University, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yung-Song
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Mickael L D
authors.initials: MLD
authors.lastname: Deroche
authors.affiliation: Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE.
authors.forename: Monita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chatterjee
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003638:Deafness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult