Older age at testing was associated with poorer recognition of words in difficult sentences, suggesting that cognitive aging may negatively impact CI outcomes. Further studies are needed to examine how a long duration of auditory deprivation affects CI outcomes.
Objective
Using signals processed to simulate speech received through cochlear implants and low-frequency extended hearing aids, this study examined the proposal that low-frequency signals facilitate the perceptual organization of broader, spectrally degraded signals.
Design
In two experiments, words and sentences were presented in diotic and dichotic configurations as four-channel noise-vocoded signals (VOC-only), and as those signals combined with the acoustic signal below 250 Hz (LOW-plus). Dependent measures were percent correct recognition scores, and the difference between scores for the two processing conditions given as proportions of recognition scores for VOC-only. The influence of linguistic context was also examined.
Study Sample
Participants had normal hearing. In all, 40 adults, 40 7-year-olds, and 20 5-year-olds participated.
Results
Participants of all ages showed benefits of adding the low-frequency signal. The effect was greater for sentences than words, but no effect of configuration was found. The influence of linguistic context was similar across age groups, and did not contribute to the low-frequency effect. Listeners who scored more poorly with VOC-only stimuli showed greater low-frequency effects.
Conclusion
The benefit of adding a very low-frequency signal to a broader, spectrally degraded signal seems to derive from its facilitative influence on perceptual organization of the sensory input.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.