Temporal fine structure: the missing component in speech processing algorithms

Stickney, Ginger S.; Nie, Kaibao; Kong, Ying‐Yee; Chen, H.; Zeng, Fan‐Gang

doi:10.1016/j.ics.2004.09.017

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Despite the remarkable speech understanding cochlear implant (CI) users demonstrate in quiet environments, complex sound processing such as music perception remains poor for most deafened implantees 1,2 . Music, notably, is a highly elaborate acoustic stimulus that requires complex resolution mechanisms and precise fine temporal spectral signal processing to extract information and meaning 3,4 . Unfortunately, CI users interface with significant pitch distortion and degraded spectral fine structure cues‐both which contribute to poor music perception and musical sound quality 5,6 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,2 Music, notably, is a highly elaborate acoustic stimulus that requires complex resolution mechanisms and precise fine temporal spectral signal processing to extract information and meaning. 3,4 Unfortunately, CI users interface with significant pitch distortion and degraded spectral fine structure cuesboth which contribute to poor music perception and musical sound quality. 5,6 Furthermore, CI users face great difficulty with extracting melodic pitch from complex stimuli, an important mechanism for musical recognition 7 and enjoyment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Vocal Boost Manipulations on Musical Sound Quality for Cochlear Implant Users

Limb

Jiradejvong

et al. 2022

The Laryngoscope

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Objective To evaluate the impact of vocal boost manipulations on cochlear implant (CI) musical sound quality appraisals. Methods An anonymous, online study was distributed to 33 CI users. Participants listened to auditory tokens and assessed the musical quality of acoustic stimuli with vocal boosting and attenuation using a validated sound quality rating scale. Four versions of real‐world musical stimuli were created: a version with +9 dB vocal boost, a version with −9 dB vocal attenuation, a composite stimulus containing a 1,000 Hz low‐pass filter and white noise (“anchor”), and an unaltered version (“hidden reference”). Subjects listened to all four versions and provided ratings based on a 100‐point scale that reflected the perceived sound quality difference of the music clip relative to the reference excerpt. Results Vocal boost increased musical sound quality ratings relative to the reference clip (11.7; 95% CI, 1.62–21.8, p = 0.016) and vocal attenuation decreased musical sound quality ratings relative to the reference clip (28.5; 95% CI, 18.64–38.44, p < 0.001). When comparing the non‐musical training group and musical training group, there was a significant difference in musical sound quality rating scores for the vocal boost condition (21.2; 95% CI: 1.76–40.7, p = 0.028). Conclusions CI‐mediated musical sound quality appraisals are impacted by vocal boost and attenuation. Musically trained CI users to report greater musical sound quality enhancement with a vocal boost with respect to CI users with no musical training background. Implementation of front‐end vocal boost manipulations in music may improve sound quality and music appreciation among CI users. Level of Evidence 2 (Individual cohort study) Laryngoscope, 133:938–947, 2023

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Vocal Boost Manipulations on Musical Sound Quality for Cochlear Implant Users

Limb

Jiradejvong

et al. 2022

The Laryngoscope

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In turn loss or degradation of these cues may contribute to poor speech understanding in noise, especially in dynamically changing backgrounds in which there are competing speakers or modulated noise [ 13 ]. Degraded temporal fine structure processing in CI subjects has proven to be detrimental for speech understanding in noise [ 38 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Central Auditory Processing of Temporal and Spectral-Variance Cues in Cochlear Implant Listeners

Pham

Bremen

Shen³

et al. 2015

PLoS ONE

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Cochlear implant (CI) listeners have difficulty understanding speech in complex listening environments. This deficit is thought to be largely due to peripheral encoding problems arising from current spread, which results in wide peripheral filters. In normal hearing (NH) listeners, central processing contributes to segregation of speech from competing sounds. We tested the hypothesis that basic central processing abilities are retained in post-lingually deaf CI listeners, but processing is hampered by degraded input from the periphery. In eight CI listeners, we measured auditory nerve compound action potentials to characterize peripheral filters. Then, we measured psychophysical detection thresholds in the presence of multi-electrode maskers placed either inside (peripheral masking) or outside (central masking) the peripheral filter. This was intended to distinguish peripheral from central contributions to signal detection. Introduction of temporal asynchrony between the signal and masker improved signal detection in both peripheral and central masking conditions for all CI listeners. Randomly varying components of the masker created spectral-variance cues, which seemed to benefit only two out of eight CI listeners. Contrastingly, the spectral-variance cues improved signal detection in all five NH listeners who listened to our CI simulation. Together these results indicate that widened peripheral filters significantly hamper central processing of spectral-variance cues but not of temporal cues in post-lingually deaf CI listeners. As indicated by two CI listeners in our study, however, post-lingually deaf CI listeners may retain some central processing abilities similar to NH listeners.

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“…Some studies compared CI users' performance to NH listeners' performance with CI simulations (vocoded speech), rather than with unmanipulated speech (Sjoberg et al, 2017;Stickney et al, 2004). In these cases, CI users performed comparably to NH listeners exposed to stimuli that were filtered to a certain amount of channels or frequency bands.…”

Section: Comparison To Individuals With Typical Hearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Broadly, these recommendations include hopes for better algorithms and coding schemes or better optimization strategies for coding algorithms for both children and adults (Geers et al, 2013;Kovačić & Balaban, 2009). For instance, the inclusion of temporal fine structure in CI processors has the potential to improve performance of CI users not just in talker recognition, but across a variety of auditory tasks, including speech recognition in noise and perception of music and lexical tone (Stickney et al, 2004). Additionally, VTL perception has been singled out as a limitation imposed by CI technology (Zaltz et al, 2018).…”

Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Temporal fine structure: the missing component in speech processing algorithms

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

The Impact of Vocal Boost Manipulations on Musical Sound Quality for Cochlear Implant Users

The Impact of Vocal Boost Manipulations on Musical Sound Quality for Cochlear Implant Users

Central Auditory Processing of Temporal and Spectral-Variance Cues in Cochlear Implant Listeners

Recognizing voices through a cochlear implant: A systematic review

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