Acoustic Hearing Can Interfere With Single-Sided Deafness Cochlear-Implant Speech Perception.
Joshua G W Bernstein, Olga A Stakhovskaya, Kenneth Kragh Jensen and 1 others
PMID 31584504WHAT IT FOUND
When single-sided deafness listeners tried to understand speech through a cochlear implant, a competing talker in their better-hearing ear made it harder in the lab.
When they listened through the better-hearing ear, the implant helped. The interference varied widely and was greater in older listeners.
Key findings
01When target speech was presented to the cochlear-implant ear, adding a copy of a competing talker to the acoustic ear reduced speech understanding; adding a copy of stationary noise did not.
02The interference varied widely across listeners, from 1 to 43 on a transformed score, and older listeners showed more interference than younger listeners.
03When target speech was sent to the acoustic ear, adding a copy of competing speech to the implant ear improved speech understanding at target-to-masker ratios of -4 and 0 dB for the six listeners tested.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 13 listeners completed experiment 1, and only 6 completed experiments 2 and 3, so the findings are from a small lab group. The study used direct audio input and headphones in a controlled laboratory, not free-field listening with real room acoustics, so it does not show how much interference would occur in everyday environments. Three listeners had mild-to-moderate hearing loss in the acoustic ear and wore hearing aids in daily life, although they removed the aids for testing. The listeners used different implant systems, maps and sound-processing features, and the study did not test whether real head-shadow benefit would be reduced by the interference. The study did not ask listeners whether the two copies of competing speech sounded fused or spatially separated, so the perceptual cause of the interference remains unclear. The age relationship was based on 13 listeners and needs confirmation in a larger sample. The study measured keyword identification in controlled sentence trials, not everyday communication outcomes or patient-reported benefit.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types list NIH extramural research support. The provided text does not include an author conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that cochlear implants cause interference for people with single-sided deafness. The interference happened only when the listener was trying to understand speech through the implant ear and a copy of competing speech was added to the acoustic ear. In the reverse condition, adding the implant signal improved performance, and the paper states that the results are not a contraindication to cochlear implantation.