Development of a Speaker Discrimination Test for Cochlear Implant Users Based on the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus

Mühler, R.; Ziese, Michael; Rostalski, Dorothea

doi:10.1159/000165170

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Yet, the large JNDs observed in this experiment will likely have consequences beyond gender categorization, extending to speaker identification in general. A number of studies have shown that CI listeners had greater difficulty discriminating actual speakers than NH listeners ( Cleary & Pisoni 2002 ; Mühler et al 2009 ). Gaudrain et al (Reference Note 3) investigated that F0 and VTL difference would lead participants to judging they were hearing two different speakers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discrimination of Voice Pitch and Vocal-Tract Length in Cochlear Implant Users

2018

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Objectives:When listening to two competing speakers, normal-hearing (NH) listeners can take advantage of voice differences between the speakers. Users of cochlear implants (CIs) have difficulty in perceiving speech on speech. Previous literature has indicated sensitivity to voice pitch (related to fundamental frequency, F0) to be poor among implant users, while sensitivity to vocal-tract length (VTL; related to the height of the speaker and formant frequencies), the other principal voice characteristic, has not been directly investigated in CIs. A few recent studies evaluated F0 and VTL perception indirectly, through voice gender categorization, which relies on perception of both voice cues. These studies revealed that, contrary to prior literature, CI users seem to rely exclusively on F0 while not utilizing VTL to perform this task. The objective of the present study was to directly and systematically assess raw sensitivity to F0 and VTL differences in CI users to define the extent of the deficit in voice perception.Design:The just-noticeable differences (JNDs) for F0 and VTL were measured in 11 CI listeners using triplets of consonant–vowel syllables in an adaptive three-alternative forced choice method.Results:The results showed that while NH listeners had average JNDs of 1.95 and 1.73 semitones (st) for F0 and VTL, respectively, CI listeners showed JNDs of 9.19 and 7.19 st. These JNDs correspond to differences of 70% in F0 and 52% in VTL. For comparison to the natural range of voices in the population, the F0 JND in CIs remains smaller than the typical male–female F0 difference. However, the average VTL JND in CIs is about twice as large as the typical male–female VTL difference.Conclusions:These findings, thus, directly confirm that CI listeners do not seem to have sufficient access to VTL cues, likely as a result of limited spectral resolution, and, hence, that CI listeners’ voice perception deficit goes beyond poor perception of F0. These results provide a potential common explanation not only for a number of deficits observed in CI listeners, such as voice identification and gender categorization, but also for competing speech perception.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discrimination of Voice Pitch and Vocal-Tract Length in Cochlear Implant Users

2018

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“…For example, compared to NH participants, CI users had lower accuracy performance in discriminating between unfamiliar talkers' voices (Carmel et al, 2011;Geers et al, 2013), in identifying the gender of voices (Kovačić & Balaban, 2009;Meister et al, 2009) and in learning to identify voices (van Heugten et al, 2014;Vongpaisal et al, 2010). Differences in talker discrimination appear to be more pronounced when tasks used speakers of the same gender (Muhler et al, 2009), or when using varied stimuli within trials (Cleary et al, 2005;Cleary & Pisoni, 2002). CI users also had more difficulty identifying the gender of voices, compared to NH participants (Massida et al, 2013).…”

Section: Comparison To Individuals With Typical Hearingmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Indeed, findings show that CI users rely more heavily on F0 than VTL compared to NH listeners, who strongly weigh both cues (Fuller et al, 2014;Meister et al, 2009). For instance, CI users are capable of categorizing stimuli from an artificial F0 continuum similarly to NH listeners (Meister et al, 2009) and the discriminability of voices by CI users is correlated to the difference in F0 of the voices, with larger differences in F0 being easier for CI users to discriminate (Muhler et al, 2009). Fu et al (2005) found that CI users can take advantage of temporal periodicity cues to discriminate gender when voices have distinct F0.…”

Section: Role Of Different Acoustic Cuesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Recognizing voices through a cochlear implant: A systematic review

Orena¹,

Sem²

2021

Preprint

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Objective: Some cochlear implant (CI) users report having difficulty accessing indexical information in the speech signal, presumably due to the transformation from acoustic to electric signal in CI devices. The purpose of this paper was to systematically review and evaluate the existing research on talker perception in CI users. Specifically, we reviewed the performance of CI users in talker discrimination, gender identification, and talker recognition tasks in relation to performance by normal-hearing (NH) listeners. We also examined the different factors (such asparticipant, hearing and device characteristics) that might influence talker perception.Design: We completed a systematic search of the literature with select keywords using citation aggregation software to search Google Scholar. We included primary reports that had at least one group of participants with cochlear implants, and had an experimental task that measured talker or voice perception. Each included study was also evaluated for quality of evidence.Results: The initial search resulted in 1239 references, which were first screened for inclusion and then evaluated in full. Thirty-nine studies examining talker identification, talker discrimimnation, and gender discrimination were included in the final review. The majority of studies were focused on adult postlingual cochlear implant users, with a few studies focused on prelingual implant users. As a group, CI users generally performed above chance in talker perception tasks, but performed worse than NH controls. Nonetheless, a subset of CI users reached the same level of performance as NH participants. CI users relied more heavily on fundamental frequency over vocal tract length cues to distinguish talkers compared to NH listeners. Within groups of CI users, there is moderate evidence for a bimodal benefit for talker perception, and there are mixed findings about the effects of hearing experience. Performance in talker discrimination tasks was related to other linguistic tasks, including word recognition. Conclusion: The current review highlights the challenges faced by CI users in tracking and recognizing voices and how they adapt to it. There is clear evidence that CI users can process indexical information, albeit differently and more effortfully than NH listeners. Recent work has begun to describe some of the factors that might ease the challenges of talker perception in CI users, but further high-quality research is needed to disentangle some of the mixed findings. We conclude by suggesting some future avenues of research to optimize real-world speech outcomes.

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“…The Italian Matrix Sentence Test allows adaptive examination and results in noise (Puglisi et al, 2015). In addition, in selected cases, use of logatomes can elucidate auditory functioning in attention and working memory (Muhler et al, 2009;Moradi et al, 2014;Schubotz et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correspondence Between Cognitive and Audiological Evaluations Among the Elderly: A Preliminary Report of an Audiological Screening Model of Subjects at Risk of Cognitive Decline With Slight to Moderate Hearing Loss

et al. 2019

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Epidemiological studies show increasing prevalence rates of cognitive decline and hearing loss with age, particularly after the age of 65 years. These conditions are reported to be associated, although conclusive evidence of causality and implications is lacking. Nevertheless, audiological and cognitive assessment among elderly people is a key target for comprehensive and multidisciplinary evaluation of the subject's frailty status. To evaluate the use of tools for identifying older adults at risk of hearing loss and cognitive decline and to compare skills and abilities in terms of hearing and cognitive performances between older adults and young subjects, we performed a prospective cross-sectional study using supraliminal auditory tests. The relationship between cognitive assessment results and audiometric results was investigated, and reference ranges for different ages or stages of disease were determined. Patients older than 65 years with different degrees of hearing function were enrolled. Each subject underwent an extensive audiological assessment, including tonal and speech audiometry, Italian Matrix Sentence Test, and speech audiometry with logatomes in quiet. Cognitive function was screened and then verified by experienced clinicians using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Score, the Geriatric Depression Scale, and further investigations in some. One hundred twenty-three subjects were finally enrolled during 2016-2019: 103 were >65 years of age and 20 were younger participants (as controls). Cognitive functions showed a correlation with the audiological results in post-lingual hearing-impaired patients, in particular in those affected by slight to moderate hearing loss and aged more than 70 years. Audiological testing can thus be useful in clinical

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Development of a Speaker Discrimination Test for Cochlear Implant Users Based on the Oldenburg Logatome Corpus

Cited by 17 publications

References 46 publications

Discrimination of Voice Pitch and Vocal-Tract Length in Cochlear Implant Users

Discrimination of Voice Pitch and Vocal-Tract Length in Cochlear Implant Users

Recognizing voices through a cochlear implant: A systematic review

Correspondence Between Cognitive and Audiological Evaluations Among the Elderly: A Preliminary Report of an Audiological Screening Model of Subjects at Risk of Cognitive Decline With Slight to Moderate Hearing Loss

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