The Effect of Interleaved Filters on Normal Hearing Listeners’ Perception of Binaural Cues

Aronoff, Justin M.; Amano-Kusumoto, Akiko; Itoh, M.; Soli, Sigfrid D.

doi:10.1097/aud.0000000000000060

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The absence of a significant detrimental effect on localization performance is also in contrast to the results from Tyler et al (2010) and Aronoff et al (2014), where participants' localization performance was consistently adversely affected by the use of interleaved processors. One possible explanation for this discrepancy could be the relatively low upper limit on the frequency allocation table used in the current study.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 59%

“…One method that has been used with a number of populations to reduce within-ear masking either from channel interaction or from the spread of masking is to interleave the spectral information across ears (Aronoff et al 2014; Kulkarni et al 2012; Loizou et al 2003; Lunner et al 1993; Siciliano et al 2010; Takagi et al 2010; Tyler et al 2010; Zhou and Pfingst 2012; Zhou and Xu 2011). This means that the spectrum is divided into two interleaved groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this detrimental effect was largest when localization was based on interaural time differences (ITDs), CI listeners are generally not able to make use of ITDs when using clinical processors (Aronoff et al 2012; Aronoff et al 2010). However, in Aronoff et al (2014) there was also a significant decrease in interleaved performance when localizing based on interaural level difference (ILD) cues. It is likely that this decrease in performance results in part from ILD cues being distributed across unmatched frequency regions in the two ears (Francart and Wouters 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interleaved Processors Improve Cochlear Implant Patients’ Spectral Resolution

et al. 2016

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Objective Cochlear implant patients have difficulty in noisy environments in part because of channel interaction. Interleaving the signal by sending every other channel to the opposite ear has the potential to reduce channel interaction by increasing the space between channels in each ear. Interleaving still potentially provides the same amount of spectral information when the two ears are combined. Although this method has been successful in other populations such as hearing aid users, interleaving with cochlear implant patients has not yielded consistent benefits. This may be because perceptual misalignment between the two ears and the spacing between stimulation locations must be taken into account before interleaving. Design Eight bilateral cochlear implant users were tested. After perceptually aligning the two ears, twelve channel maps were made that spanned the entire aligned portions of the array. Interleaved maps were created by removing every other channel from each ear. Participants' spectral resolution and localization abilities were measured with perceptually aligned processing strategies both with and without interleaving. Results There was a significant improvement in spectral resolution with interleaving. However, there was no significant effect of interleaving on localization abilities. Conclusions The results indicate that interleaving can improve cochlear implant users' spectral resolution. However, it may be necessary to perceptually align the two ears and/or use relatively large spacing between stimulation locations.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interleaved Processors Improve Cochlear Implant Patients’ Spectral Resolution

et al. 2016

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“…There have been previous attempts to use dichotic presentation to improve speech identification in hearing-aid or cochlear implants users [ 25 – 28 , 55 ], and the current study provides additional support for this approach. However, there could be unintended consequences of removing crucial binaural spatial cues, such as interaural time or level differences [ 29 ], so further study in spatially diverse settings is still needed. Along with the support of amplification, dichotic presentation should be considered as an appropriate strategy for improving speech-in-noise performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This was previously assessed by measuring performance in the asynchronously-modulated masker presented either monaurally or dichotically. Dichotic presentation meant that alternating frequency regions were separated across the ears to avoid peripheral masking spread from proximal frequency regions [ 25 – 29 ]. Masking release in dichotic, asynchronously-modulated masker conditions was larger than in the monaural case, and this was interpreted as the direct result of removing negative effects of masking spread.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Sensorineural Hearing Impairment on Asynchronous Glimpsing of Speech

2016

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In a previous study with normal-hearing listeners, we evaluated consonant identification masked by two or more spectrally contiguous bands of noise, with asynchronous square-wave modulation applied to neighboring bands. Speech recognition thresholds were 5.1–8.5 dB better when neighboring bands were presented to different ears (dichotic) than when all bands were presented to one ear (monaural), depending on the spectral width of the frequency bands. This dichotic advantage was interpreted as reflecting masking release from peripheral spread of masking from neighboring frequency bands. The present study evaluated this effect in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss, a population more susceptible to spread of masking. Speech perception (vowel-consonant-vowel stimuli, as in /aBa/) was measured in the presence of fluctuating noise that was either modulated synchronously across frequency or asynchronously. Hearing-impaired listeners (n = 9) and normal-hearing controls were tested at either the same intensity (n = 7) or same sensation level (n = 8). Hearing-impaired listeners had mild-to-moderate hearing loss and symmetrical, flat audiometric thresholds. While all groups of listeners performed better in the dichotic than monaural condition, this effect was smaller for the hearing-impaired (3.5 dB) and equivalent-sensation-level controls (3.3 dB) than controls tested at the same intensity (11.0 dB). The present study is consistent with the idea that dichotic presentation can improve speech-in-noise listening for hearing-impaired listeners, and may be enhanced when combined with amplification.

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Binaural Optimization of Cochlear Implants: Discarding Frequency Content Without Sacrificing Head-Shadow Benefit

Goupell

Spencer

et al. 2019

Ear &Amp; Hearing

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Objectives: Single-sided deafness cochlear-implant (SSD-CI) listeners and bilateral cochlear-implant (BI-CI) listeners gain near-normal levels of head-shadow benefit but limited binaural benefits. One possible reason for these limited binaural benefits is that cochlear places of stimulation tend to be mismatched between the ears. SSD-CI and BI-CI patients might benefit from a binaural fitting that reallocates frequencies to reduce interaural place mismatch. However, this approach could reduce monaural speech recognition and head-shadow benefit by excluding low- or high-frequency information from one ear. This study examined how much frequency information can be excluded from a CI signal in the poorer-hearing ear without reducing head-shadow benefits and how these outcomes are influenced by interaural asymmetry in monaural speech recognition. Design: Speech-recognition thresholds for sentences in speech-shaped noise were measured for 6 adult SSD-CI listeners, 12 BI-CI listeners, and 9 normal-hearing listeners presented with vocoder simulations. Stimuli were presented using nonindividualized in-the-ear or behind-the-ear head-related impulse-response simulations with speech presented from a 70° azimuth (poorer-hearing side) and noise from 70° (better-hearing side), thereby yielding a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the poorer-hearing ear. Head-shadow benefit was computed as the improvement in bilateral speech-recognition thresholds gained from enabling the CI in the poorer-hearing, better-SNR ear. High- or low-pass filtering was systematically applied to the head-related impulse-response–filtered stimuli presented to the poorer-hearing ear. For the SSD-CI listeners and SSD-vocoder simulations, only high-pass filtering was applied, because the CI frequency allocation would never need to be adjusted downward to frequency-match the ears. For the BI-CI listeners and BI-vocoder simulations, both low and high pass filtering were applied. The normal-hearing listeners were tested with two levels of performance to examine the effect of interaural asymmetry in monaural speech recognition (vocoder synthesis-filter slopes: 5 or 20 dB/octave). Results: Mean head-shadow benefit was smaller for the SSD-CI listeners (~7 dB) than for the BI-CI listeners (~14 dB). For SSD-CI listeners, frequencies <1236 Hz could be excluded; for BI-CI listeners, frequencies <886 or >3814 Hz could be excluded from the poorer-hearing ear without reducing head-shadow benefit. Bilateral performance showed greater immunity to filtering than monaural performance, with gradual changes in performance as a function of filter cutoff. Real and vocoder-simulated CI users with larger interaural asymmetry in monaural performance had less head-shadow benefit. Conclusions: The “exclusion frequency” ranges that could be removed without diminishing head-shadow benefit are interpreted in terms of low importance in the speech intelligibility index and a small head-shadow magnitude at low frequencies. Although groups and individuals with greater performance asymmetry gained less head-shadow benefit, the magnitudes of these factors did not predict the exclusion frequency range. Overall, these data suggest that for many SSD-CI and BI-CI listeners, the frequency allocation for the poorer-ear CI can be shifted substantially without sacrificing head-shadow benefit, at least for energetic maskers. Considering the two ears together as a single system may allow greater flexibility in discarding redundant frequency content from a CI in one ear when considering bilateral programming solutions aimed at reducing interaural frequency mismatch.

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The Effect of Interleaved Filters on Normal Hearing Listeners’ Perception of Binaural Cues

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Interleaved Processors Improve Cochlear Implant Patients’ Spectral Resolution

Interleaved Processors Improve Cochlear Implant Patients’ Spectral Resolution

The Effects of Sensorineural Hearing Impairment on Asynchronous Glimpsing of Speech

Binaural Optimization of Cochlear Implants: Discarding Frequency Content Without Sacrificing Head-Shadow Benefit

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