Musical Interval Perception With a Cochlear Implant Alone and With a Contralateral Normal Hearing Ear.

Only ten people were tested, and all had single-sided deafness with a cochlear implant, so the findings may not apply to other cochlear implant users. Some people performed poorly even with their normal-hearing ear, so poor performance with the implant cannot always be blamed on the implant. Many scores were very high with the normal-hearing ear and with both ears, which can make small differences hard to detect. The task used sung vowels and one familiar melody, so it does not describe how people perceive speech or full musical pieces. The study did not compare different implant devices or electrode designs, and most participants used the same type of Cochlear array. Attention, understanding of the task, and memory of Happy Birthday could have affected performance. The voice-by-ear differences came from multiple analyses on the same data and cannot be treated as independent confirmations.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by a MED-EL Hearing Solutions Grant and the University of Illinois Campus Research Board. MED-EL Medical Electronics is named as funder.

Do not conclude that adding a cochlear implant to a normal-hearing ear improves musical interval perception. The both-ear condition did not differ from the normal-hearing ear alone, and the male-voice improvement was a secondary analysis.