A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Attentive Music Listening on Cochlear Implant Users’ Speech Perception, Quality of Life, and Behavioral and Objective Measures of Frequency Change Detection

Abstract

Introduction: Most cochlear implant (CI) users have difficulty in listening tasks that rely strongly on perception of frequency changes (e.g., speech perception in noise, musical melody perception, etc.). Some previous studies using behavioral or subjective assessments have shown that short-term music training can benefit CI users' perception of music and speech. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings may reveal the neural basis for music training benefits in CI users. Objective: To examine the effects of short-term music training on CI hearing outcomes using a comprehensive test battery of subjective evaluation, behavioral tests, and EEG measures. Design: Twelve adult CI users were recruited for a home-based music training program that focused on attentive listening to music genres and materials that have an emphasis on melody. The participants used a music streaming program (i.e., Pandora) downloaded onto personal electronic devices for training. The participants attentively listened to music through a direct audio cable or through Bluetooth streaming. The training schedule was 40 min/session/day, 5 days/week, for either 4 or 8 weeks. The pre-training and post-training tests included: hearing thresholds, Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ12) questionnaire, psychoacoustic tests of frequency change detection threshold (FCDT), speech recognition tests (CNC words, AzBio sentences, and QuickSIN), and EEG responses to tones that contained different magnitudes of frequency changes. Results: All participants except one finished the 4-or 8-week training, resulting in a dropout rate of 8.33%. Eleven participants performed all tests except for two who did not participate in EEG tests. Results showed a significant improvement in the FCDTs as

No Evidence That Music Training Benefits Speech Perception in Hearing-Impaired Listeners: A Systematic Review

“…Of the 13 papers identified, four ( Cheng et al., 2018 ; Firestone et al., 2020 ; Hutter et al., 2015 ; Smith et al., 2017 ) used no control group. Although all these papers claimed improvements in speech perception in CI users after training, with no control group, these improvements cannot be validly attributed to training or any aspect specifically about music.…”

“…No statistics were presented for both groups combined. Firestone et al. (2020) studied 11 experienced adult CI users, who were instructed to listen to music of their choice for 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 4 or 8 weeks.…”

Rapid Assessment of Non-Verbal Auditory Perception in Normal-Hearing Participants and Cochlear Implant Users

“…Over the past few years, many training and rehabilitation strategies have been developed to enhance the pitch perception abilities in CI users. For instance, some training focused on auditory musical training [ 34 , 39 , 105 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 ]. Most of these trainings used the Melodic Contour Identification task [ 102 , 105 ], in which a subject hears a melody, and has to recognize its contour and select the correct response among several contour visual representations.…”

Self-reported music perception is related to quality of life and self-reported hearing abilities in cochlear implant users

“…As the results are mixed, the musician effect in NH listeners remains a subject of on-going interest, as is the effect of musical experience in CI users. While musical training and involvement before cochlear implantation seems to not affect CI users' post-implantation speech perception performance (Fuller et al, 2012), music training with the CI seems to improve vocal emotion perception and speech perception (Firestone et al, 2020;Fuller et al, 2018;Lo et al, 2015;Patel, 2014).…”