Clinically Paired Electrodes Are Often Not Perceived as Pitch Matched.
Justin M Aronoff, Monica Padilla, Julia Stelmach and 1 others
PMID 27641682WHAT IT FOUND
Bilateral cochlear implant users often did not hear clinically paired electrodes as the same pitch.
Mismatches appeared in new and long-term users. Do not assume standard electrode pairings give matched pitch.
Key findings
01For 14 of the 16 participants, pitch matches significantly deviated from clinical pairings for at least one electrode.
02The average difference between pitch-matched pairs and clinical pairings was 1.3 electrodes, and the maximum difference was 2.4 electrodes.
03Mismatches occurred in participants with minimal and extensive bilateral experience, and experience was not significantly related to mismatch size.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 16 participants, and the data were collected as part of other ongoing experiments. Lab stimulation parameters were chosen for other ongoing experiments and were below the pulse rate used in clinical processors. Large variability in some participants' pitch-matching data made confidence intervals large, so the number of significant mismatches may underestimate the true mismatch burden. Many participants used the Advanced Bionics 1J array, which has higher insertion depth variability, and this may have increased left-right misalignment. The study compared people with different lengths of experience at one time, so it cannot show whether mismatches decrease with experience.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that pitch-matched mapping will improve hearing or communication. This study measured perceived pitch mismatches only and did not test a clinical intervention or patient outcomes.