The original audio mix in real-world music might not be suitable for cochlear implant recipients. Modifying the relative instrument level settings potentially improves music enjoyment.
Abstract-Objective: Listening to music is still one of the more challenging aspects of using a cochlear implant (CI) for most users. Simple musical structures, a clear rhythm/beat and lyrics that are easy to follow are among the top factors contributing to music appreciation for CI users. Modifying the audio mix of complex music potentially improves music enjoyment in CI users. Methods: A stereo music pre-processing scheme is described in which vocals, drums and bass are emphasized based on the representation of the harmonic and the percussive components in the input spectrogram, combined with the spatial allocation of instruments in typical stereo recordings. The scheme is assessed with post-lingually deafened CI subjects (N=7) using pop/rock music excerpts with different complexity levels. Results: The scheme is capable of modifying relative instrument level settings, with the aim of improving music appreciation in CI users, and allows individual preference adjustments. The assessment with CI subjects confirms the preference for more emphasis on vocals, drums and bass as offered by the pre-processing scheme, especially for songs with higher complexity. Conclusion: The stereo music pre-processing scheme has the potential to improve music enjoyment in CI users by modifying the audio mix in widespread (stereo) music recordings. Significance: Since music enjoyment in CI users is generally poor, this scheme can assist the music listening experience of CI users as a training or rehabilitation tool. the hair cells of the cochlea and can be congenital or acquired after birth. Although CI users reach good speech understanding in quiet surroundings, music perception and appreciation generally remain poor [2]. Simple musical structures, a clear rhythm/beat and lyrics that are easy to follow were reported amongst the top factors contributing to music appreciation in CI users [3]. A negative correlation was found between (subjective) complexity and appreciation, studied with pop, country and classical music [4]. CI users were asked to rate complexity and appraisal for different music excerpts on a scale from 0 to 100. Classical music was rated as more complex than pop and country music. Several plausible explanations were provided including the presence of simple musical structures and lyrics in pop and country music. Since CIs were mainly developed for transmitting speech sounds, the presence of lyrics may make it easier for CI users to follow the sequence of events in complex music. In addition, both pop and country music often contain a strong, simple beat which is well encoded in the electrical stimulation pattern of current CIs. Moreover, the performance for CI subjects on rhythmic pattern perception tasks is nearly as good as for normal hearing (NH) subjects (e.g. [2] [5] [6]). On the other hand, the accurate transmission of spectral and finestructure information (as is often the case in instrumental classical music) remains challenging due to channel interactions, limited number of stimulation channels and limited d...
The stereo music preprocessing scheme showed an improvement in music appraisal with complex music and hence might be a good tool for music listening, training, or rehabilitation for CI users.
Abstract-Music appreciation remains challenging for cochlear implant users. In previous studies a strong negative correlation was found with cochlear implant subjects between music appreciation and music complexity. In this paper, music features that contribute to music complexity are investigated and related to a music preprocessing scheme for cochlear implants, in which a complexity reduction is achieved in an attempt to increase music appreciation. First, a complexity rating experiment is performed with pop/rock music excerpts and a linear regression model is developed to describe this (subjective) music complexity based on different music features. Subsequently, this model is used to validate the complexity reduction in the music preprocessing scheme and to provide an indication for the preferred setting for the balance between vocals/bass/drums and the other instruments for cochlear implant subjects.
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