A Neurophysiological Study of Musical Pitch Identification in Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users

Abstract

Music perception in cochlear implant (CI) users is far from satisfactory, not only because of the technological limitations of current CI devices but also due to the neurophysiological alterations that generally accompany deafness. Early behavioral studies revealed that similar mechanisms underlie musical and lexical pitch perception in CI-based electric hearing. Although neurophysiological studies of the musical pitch perception of English-speaking CI users are actively ongoing, little such research has been conducted with Mandarin-speaking CI users; as Mandarin is a tonal language, these individuals require pitch information to understand speech. The aim of this work was to study the neurophysiological mechanisms accounting for the musical pitch identification abilities of Mandarin-speaking CI users and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Behavioral and mismatch negativity (MMN) data were analyzed to examine musical pitch processing performance. Moreover, neurophysiological results from CI users with good and bad pitch discrimination performance (according to the just-noticeable differences (JND) and pitch-direction discrimination (PDD) tasks) were compared to identify cortical responses associated with musical pitch perception differences. The MMN experiment was conducted using a passive oddball paradigm, with musical tone C4 (262 Hz) presented as the standard and tones D4 (294 Hz), E4 (330 Hz), G#4 (415 Hz), and C5 (523 Hz) presented as deviants. CI users demonstrated worse musical pitch discrimination ability than did NH listeners, as reflected by larger JND and PDD thresholds for pitch identification, and significantly increased latencies and reduced amplitudes in MMN responses. Good CI performers had better MMN results than did bad performers. Consistent with findings for English-speaking CI users, the results of this work suggest that MMN is a viable marker of cortical pitch perception in Mandarin-speaking CI users.

Adapting to the Sound of Music — Development of Music Discrimination Skills in Recently Implanted CI Users

“…In addition to the N1, EEG offers the possibility to record the mismatch negativity (MMN) response which has been successfully applied as a reliable objective marker for CI users’ discrimination ability ( Cai et al, 2020 ; Näätänen et al, 2017 ; Petersen et al, 2020 ). The MMN is a preattentive component of the event-related potential.…”

The development of cortical processing of speech differs between children with cochlear implants and normal hearing and changes with parental singing

“…The MMN has been elicited in both children and adults with CIs (for a review, see Näätänen et al, 2017 ), and with amplitudes becoming larger with better behavioral perception (for pitch: Cai et al, 2020 ; for speech: Turgeon et al, 2014 ; for a review, see Näätänen et al, 2017 ). Furthermore, the pMMR has also been elicited in children with CIs (for a review, see Ziatabar Ahmadi et al, 2022 ).…”