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Correlations Between Pitch and Phoneme Perception in Cochlear Implant Users and Their Normal Hearing Peers

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Abstract

This study examined correlations between pitch and phoneme perception for nine cochlear implant users and nine normal hearing listeners. Pure tone frequency discrimination thresholds were measured for frequencies of 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz. Complex tone fundamental frequency (F0) discrimination thresholds were measured for F0s of 110, 220, and 440 Hz. The effects of amplitude and frequency roving were measured under the rationale that individuals who are robust to such perturbations would perform better on phoneme perception measures. Phoneme identification was measured using consonant and vowel materials in quiet, in stationary speech-shaped noise (SSN), in spectrally notched SSN, and in temporally gated SSN. Cochlear implant pure tone frequency discrimination thresholds ranged between 1.5 and 9.9 %, while cochlear implant complex tone F0 discrimination thresholds ranged between 2.6 and 28.5 %. On average, cochlear implant users had 5.3 dB of masking release for consonants and 8.4 dB of masking release for vowels when measured in temporally gated SSN compared to stationary SSN. Correlations with phoneme identification measures were generally higher for complex tone discrimination measures than for pure tone discrimination measures. Correlations with phoneme identification measures were also generally higher for pitch perception measures that included amplitude and frequency roving. The strongest correlations were observed for measures of complex tone F0 discrimination with phoneme identification in temporally gated SSN. The results of this study suggest that musical training or signal processing strategies that improve F0 discrimination should improve consonant identification in fluctuating noise.

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Notes

  1. See Micheyl et al. (2006) for a rationale for using logarithmic space when analyzing discrimination thresholds using similar methods.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NIH grant DC010524-02. The author thanks Louis D. Braida and Andrew E. Vandali for helpful comments on an early draft of this article. The author also thanks Amy Martinez for assistance in collecting subject data.

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The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Raymond L. Goldsworthy

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  1. Raymond L. Goldsworthy
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Correspondence to Raymond L. Goldsworthy.

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Goldsworthy, R.L. Correlations Between Pitch and Phoneme Perception in Cochlear Implant Users and Their Normal Hearing Peers. JARO 16, 797–809 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-015-0541-9

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