Development and validation of a spectro-temporal processing test for cochlear-implant listeners

Archer-Boyd, Alan; Southwell, Rosy; Deeks, John M.; Turner, Richard E.; Carlyon, Robert P.

doi:10.1121/1.5079636

Cited by 31 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…As noted earlier, performance of the STRt and STRt dir , and related tests that require the discrimination of glide direction (Archer-Boyd et al, 2018), may depend on both spectral and temporal resolution, depending on the value of R. For low values of R, spectral resolution is probably the dominant factor. However, as R increases, temporal resolution plays an increasing role, and for very high R temporal resolution is likely to be the main factor limiting performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…In variants of these tests, the ripples have been made to glide upwards or downwards in frequency to produce a spectro-temporal ripple noise (STRn), with temporal repetition rate, R (in ripples/s). It has been assumed in many studies using STRn stimuli that performance depends on both spectral and temporal resolution (Archer-Boyd et al, 2018;Chi et al, 1999;Nechaev et al, 2018). However, the relative importance of these two has not been systematically assessed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of ripple repetition rate on discrimination of ripple glide direction and the detection of brief tones in spectro-temporal ripple noise

Narne

Antony

Baer

et al. 2019

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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The effect of temporal repetition rate R on the discrimination and internal representation of stimuli with spectro-temporal ripples was examined. Experiment 1 measured the highest ripple density D at which upward- and downward-gliding ripples could be discriminated. Thresholds varied only slightly for R from 2 to 8 Hz, with a median threshold just above 5 ripples/oct. The threshold decreased (worsened) when R was increased to 16 and 32 Hz, suggesting that the limited temporal resolution of the auditory system plays a role for these higher values of R. Experiment 2 explored the internal representation of stimuli with static and downward-gliding spectral ripples by measuring the detection threshold for a brief tone presented at a peak or a valley in the stimulus spectrum. Thresholds were generally higher when the signal was at a peak than when it was at a valley. The peak-valley difference tended to decrease with increasing D, and the variation of thresholds with D was greater for low R than for high R. The results suggest that the discrimination of spectro-temporal ripples is limited mainly by frequency resolution for lower ripple rates (up to 4–8 Hz) but temporal resolution plays a major role for higher rates.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of ripple repetition rate on discrimination of ripple glide direction and the detection of brief tones in spectro-temporal ripple noise

Narne

Antony

Baer

et al. 2019

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…For the first experiment, we varied the amount of blurring, as a means of manipulating channel interaction, by adjusting the spectral overlap between electrode channels in terms of the acoustic bandwidths of the input analysis filters. This method of blurring at the input of the CI has been used previously and led to significant decreases in performance on a spectro-temporal test with CI users (Archer-Boyd et al, 2018). The Advanced Bionics (AB) CI speech processor makes use of a 16-band analysis filter bank with a frequency range from 238 up to 8054 Hz.…”

Section: Methods For Blurring At the Input Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We therefore measured performance as a function of the amount of blurring, and used the blurring amount at which performance started to deteriorate as a measure of the spectro-temporal resolution for each subject. We then correlated this estimate, across listeners, with performance on a nonspeech spectro-temporal task (Archer-Boyd et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using spectral blurring to assess effects of channel interaction on speech-in-noise perception with cochlear implants

Goehring¹,

Arenberg²,

Carlyon³

2019

Preprint

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Cochlear implant (CI) listeners struggle to understand speech in background noise. Interactions between electrode channels due to current spread increase the masking of speech by noise and lead to difficulties with speech perception. Strategies that reduce channel interaction therefore have the potential to improve speech-in-noise perception by CI listeners, but previous results have been mixed. We investigated the effects of channel interaction on speech-in-noise perception and its association with spectro-temporal acuity in a listening study with 12 CI users. Instead of attempting to reduce channel interaction, we introduced spectral blurring to simulate some of the effects of channel interaction by adjusting the overlap between electrode channels at the input level of the analysis filters or at the output by using several simultaneously-stimulated electrodes per channel. We measured speech reception thresholds in noise as a function of the amount of blurring applied to either all 15 electrode channels or to 5 evenly spaced channels. Performance remained roughly constant as the amount of blurring applied to all channels increased up to some knee point, above which it deteriorated. This knee point differed across listeners in a way that correlated with performance on a non-speech spectro-temporal task, and is proposed here as an individual measure of channel interaction. Surprisingly, even extreme amounts of blurring applied to 5 channels did not affect performance. The effects on speech perception in noise were similar for blurring at the input and at the output of the CI. These results confirm the assumption that CI users make use of a limited number of effective channels, are highly resilient against spectral distortions and can tolerate substantial deviations from their everyday settings without harming their speech perception. These findings may explain the mixed results by strategies that optimized or deactivated a small number of electrodes evenly distributed along the array.

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“…However, using subjectdependent criteria would be similar to finding the subjectspecific carrier rate and, even if beneficial, it remains unclear whether this could be achieved in a time-efficient manner. Nevertheless, one method could be to use a spectro-temporal test, such as SMRT (Aronoff and Landsberger, 2013) or STRIPES (Archer-Boyd et al, 2018), to assess listener performance and identify the best strategy for each subject.…”

Section: Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of a coding strategy that removes temporally masked pulses on speech perception by cochlear implant users

Lamping¹,

Goehring²,

Marozeau³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Speech recognition in noisy environments remains a challenge for cochlear implant (CI) recipients. Unwanted charge interactions between current pulses in the same and across different electrode channels are likely to impair performance. Here we investigate the effect of reducing the number of current pulses on speech perception. This was achieved by implementing a psychoacoustic temporal-masking model where current pulses in each channel were passed through a temporal integrator to identify and remove pulses that were less likely to be perceived by the recipient. The decision criterion of the temporal integrator was varied to control the percentage of pulses removed in each condition. In experiment 1, speech in quiet was processed with a standard Continuous Interleaved Sampling (CIS) strategy and with 25, 50 and 75% of pulses removed. In experiment 2, performance was measured for speech in noise with the CIS reference and with 50 and 75% of pulses removed. Speech intelligibility in quiet revealed no significant difference between reference and test conditions. For speech in noise, results showed a significant improvement of 2.4 dB when removing 50% of pulses. Performance both in quiet and in noise was not significantly different between the reference and when 75% of pulses were removed. Further, by reducing the overall amount of current pulses by 25, 50, and 75% but accounting for the increase in charge necessary to compensate for the decrease in loudness, estimated average power savings of 21.15, 40.95, and 63.45%, respectively, could be possible for this set of listeners. In conclusion, removing temporally masked pulses may improve speech perception in noise and result in substantial power savings.

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Development and validation of a spectro-temporal processing test for cochlear-implant listeners

Cited by 31 publications

References 63 publications

Effect of ripple repetition rate on discrimination of ripple glide direction and the detection of brief tones in spectro-temporal ripple noise

Effect of ripple repetition rate on discrimination of ripple glide direction and the detection of brief tones in spectro-temporal ripple noise

Using spectral blurring to assess effects of channel interaction on speech-in-noise perception with cochlear implants

The effect of a coding strategy that removes temporally masked pulses on speech perception by cochlear implant users

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