The Role of Temporal Cues in Voluntary Stream Segregation for Cochlear Implant Users.
Andreu Paredes-Gallardo, Sara M K Madsen, Torsten Dau and 1 others
PMID 29766759WHAT IT FOUND
Cochlear implant users detected a delayed sound better when the distractor pulse rate was lower than the target pulse rate, especially over longer sequences.
For long sequences, 100 pps was the smallest helpful rate difference. This was lab hearing, not speech in noise.
Key findings
01Detection of the delayed sound improved as the difference between target and distractor pulse rates increased.
02The improvement with larger rate differences was greater for 12-pair sequences than for 4-pair sequences.
03Listeners could separate the streams for long sequences at 100 pps and for short sequences only at 220 pps.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only seven cochlear implant listeners were tested, and their performance varied widely, so this is not evidence of a clinical treatment effect. The task used pulse trains and detection of a delayed sound, not speech or listening in complex situations. Six listeners had previously taken part in a similar study, and control and no-difference data for them came from that earlier study, so practice or overlap between studies may have influenced the results. All participants had no residual hearing and used Cochlear Ltd. implants, so the findings may not apply to listeners with residual hearing. The study compared short and long sequences rather than measuring how segregation develops continuously within one sequence.
Declared interests
No author conflict-of-interest declaration was included in the supplied text. The supplied article type lists non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this improves speech understanding in noise for cochlear implant users. The study measured detection of a delayed pulse train in a laboratory task, not speech recognition, communication, or a clinical intervention.