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

Abstract

In the case of hearing loss, cochlear implants (CI) allow for the restoration of hearing. Despite the advantages of CIs for speech perception, CI users still complain about their poor perception of their auditory environment. Aiming to assess non-verbal auditory perception in CI users, we developed five listening tests. These tests measure pitch change detection, pitch direction identification, pitch short-term memory, auditory stream segregation, and emotional prosody recognition, along with perceived intensity ratings. In order to test the potential benefit of visual cues for pitch processing, the three pitch tests included half of the trials with visual indications to perform the task. We tested 10 normal-hearing (NH) participants with material being presented as original and vocoded sounds, and 10 post-lingually deaf CI users. With the vocoded sounds, the NH participants had reduced scores for the detection of small pitch differences, and reduced emotion recognition and streaming abilities compared to the original sounds. Similarly, the CI users had deficits for small differences in the pitch change detection task and emotion recognition, as well as a decreased streaming capacity. Overall, this assessment allows for the rapid detection of specific patterns of non-verbal auditory perception deficits. The current findings also open new perspectives about how to enhance pitch perception capacities using visual cues.

Effects of mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss and signal amplification on vocal emotion recognition in middle-aged–older individuals

“…Several studies have found mild-to-moderate hearing loss to be related to deficits in vocal emotion recognition ability [19,27,28]), an ability that is not mitigated by hearing aid use [27], but also see [29,30]. However, it has been suggested that what is interpreted as vocal emotion recognition deficits should rather be interpreted as general deficits in prosody recognition (including linguistic and non-linguistic prosody; [30,31]). Concerning recognition of different vocal emotions, Christensen et al found no significant interaction between emotion category and hearing loss [19].…”

“…Goy et al, however, found such an interaction, with sadness being recognized accurately significantly more often compared to anger, disgust, fear and happiness, but not compared to surprise or neutrality. In individuals with hearing loss, confusions between different vocal emotions appear to be much more common in comparison to normal hearing individuals [31].…”

Standardization of Three Familiar Sound Recognition Tests in Hearing and Deaf Adult Populations

“…Indeed, despite the considerable advances offered by the cochlear implant (CI) in restoring peripheral hearing, its limited frequency resolution may be responsible for distortion of incoming sensory input. Consequently, users may experience both verbal and nonverbal hearing difficulties (4,5), and have been shown to demonstrate poor to average performance in environmental stimuli recognition tasks (5). Interestingly, CI users do not always complain about environmental sounds.…”

Biophysical aspects of auditory perception in patients with cochlear implants

“…Тем не менее остается много возможностей для их улучшения [4]. Как отмечают большинство авторов, даже пациенты с наилучшими результатами все еще имеют трудности слухового восприятия в сложных акустических условиях, таких как речь в шуме или в ситуации с одновременно несколькими говорящими [5]. Одну из самых больших проблем для прослушивания у пациентов с кохлеарными имплантатами представляет восприятие музыки [6].…”