Approximations to the Voice of a Cochlear Implant: Explorations With Single-Sided Deaf Listeners.
Michael F Dorman, Sarah Cook Natale, Leslie Baxter and 7 others
PMID 32339072WHAT IT FOUND
Fourteen people with one normal ear and one cochlear implant matched the implant's sound to modified speech using filters and pitch changes.
They described the implant as muffled, robotic or harsh. The simulations varied widely, showing no single sound quality exists for all implant users.
Key findings
01Participants rated their best match to the implant sound between 7 and 10 on a 10-point scale, with a mean of 8.8.
02Low-pass or band-pass filtering was the most common modification needed, used by 11 of the 14 participants.
03Participants reported that the simulated sounds were clearer than their actual implant and lacked a robotic or harsh quality.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a black-box approach without a physiological model of how electrical stimulation alters sound. A single, highly experienced researcher conducted all matching, which introduces potential bias and prevents replication by others. The methods were not psychophysically rigorous, so the results should be viewed as qualitative descriptions rather than precise measurements. Participants may have used different internal standards for rating similarity, meaning a score of 7 for one person might equal a 9 for another. The participants had one normal-hearing ear, so it is unknown if conventional bilateral implant users experience the same sound qualities.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Med-El Corporation, the manufacturer of the cochlear implant devices used by the participants.
The easy way to misread this
Do not present these matches as objective truth or as the standard sound of a cochlear implant. The simulations were subjective approximations created by a single researcher and a small group of participants with one normal ear, and the authors state the methods were not psychophysically rigorous.