Effects of cochlear implant processing and fundamental frequency on the intelligibility of competing sentences

Speech perception in the presence of another competing voice is one of the most challenging tasks for cochlear implant users. Several studies have shown that (1) the fundamental frequency (F0) is a useful cue for segregating competing speech sounds and (2) the F0 is better represented by the tempora...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2007-08, Vol.122 (2), p.1069-1078
Main Authors: Stickney, Ginger S., Assmann, Peter F., Chang, Janice, Zeng, Fan-Gang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Analysis of Variance
Audition
Biological and medical sciences
Cochlear Implantation
Functional Laterality
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language
Noise
Perception
Phonetics
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reference Values
Speech Intelligibility
Speech Perception
Voice
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Summary:Speech perception in the presence of another competing voice is one of the most challenging tasks for cochlear implant users. Several studies have shown that (1) the fundamental frequency (F0) is a useful cue for segregating competing speech sounds and (2) the F0 is better represented by the temporal fine structure than by the temporal envelope. However, current cochlear implant speech processing algorithms emphasize temporal envelope information and discard the temporal fine structure. In this study, speech recognition was measured as a function of the F0 separation of the target and competing sentence in normal-hearing and cochlear implant listeners. For the normal-hearing listeners, the combined sentences were processed through either a standard implant simulation or a new algorithm which additionally extracts a slowed-down version of the temporal fine structure (called Frequency-Amplitude-Modulation-Encoding). The results showed no benefit of increasing F0 separation for the cochlear implant or simulation groups. In contrast, the new algorithm resulted in gradual improvements with increasing F0 separation, similar to that found with unprocessed sentences. These results emphasize the importance of temporal fine structure for speech perception and demonstrate a potential remedy for difficulty in the perceptual segregation of competing speech sounds.
ISSN:0001-4966
1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.2750159