The sound sensation of a pure tone in cochlear implant recipients with single-sided deafness

Ten cochlear implant (CI) users with single-sided deafness were asked to vary the parameters of an acoustic sound played to their contralateral ear to characterize the perception evoked by a pure tone played through the direct audio input of their CI. Two frequencies, centered on an apical and a medial electrode, were tested. In six subjects, the electrode positions were estimated on CT scans. The study was divided in 3 experiments in which the parameters of the acoustic sound varied. The listeners had to vary the frequency

Pupillometry Assessment of Speech Recognition and Listening Experience in Adult Cochlear Implant Patients

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the pupillary response to word identification in cochlear implant (CI) patients. Authors hypothesized that when task difficulty (i.e., addition of background noise) increased, pupil dilation markers such as the peak dilation or the latency of the peak dilation would increase in CI users, as already observed in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects. Methods: Pupillometric measures in 10 CI patients were combined to standard speech recognition scores used to evaluate CI outcomes, namely, speech audiometry in quiet and in noise at +10 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The main outcome measures of pupillometry were mean pupil dilation, maximal pupil dilation, dilation latency, and mean dilation during return to baseline or retention interval. Subjective hearing quality was evaluated by means of one self-reported fatigue questionnaire, and the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities (SSQ) of Hearing scale. Results: All pupil dilation data were transformed to percent change in event-related pupil dilation (ERPD, %). Analyses show that the peak amplitudes for both mean pupil dilation and maximal pupil dilation were higher during the speech-in-noise test. Mean peak dilation was measured at 3.47 ± 2.29% noise vs. 2.19 ± 2.46 in quiet and maximal peak value was detected at 9.17 ± 3.25% in noise vs. 8.72 ± 2.93% in quiet. Concerning the questionnaires, the mean pupil dilation during the retention interval was significantly correlated with the spatial subscale score of the SSQ Hearing scale [r(8) = −0.84, p = 0.0023], and with the global score [r(8) = −0.78, p = 0.0018]. Conclusion: The analysis of pupillometric traces, obtained during speech audiometry in quiet and in noise in CI users, provided interesting information about the different processes engaged in this task. Pupillometric measures could be indicative of listening difficulty, phoneme intelligibility, and were correlated with general hearing experience as evaluated by the SSQ of Hearing scale. These preliminary results show that pupillometry constitutes a promising tool to improve objective quantification of CI performance in clinical settings

Temporal-envelope reconstruction for hearing-impaired listeners

Recent studies suggest that normal-hearing listeners maintain robust speech intelligibility despite severe degradations of amplitude-modulation (AM) cues, by using temporal-envelope information recovered from broadband frequency-modulation (FM) speech cues at the output of cochlear filters. This study aimed to assess whether cochlear damage affects this capacity to reconstruct temporal-envelope information from FM. This was achieved by measuring the ability of 40 normal-hearing listeners and 41 listeners with mild-to-moderate hearing loss to identify syllables processed to degrade AM cues while leaving FM cues intact within three broad frequency bands spanning the range 65–3,645 Hz. Stimuli were presented at 65 dB SPL for both normal-hearing listeners and hearing-impaired listeners. They were presented as such or amplified using a modified half-gain rule for hearing-impaired listeners. Hearing-impaired listeners showed significantly poorer identification scores than normal-hearing listeners at both presentation levels. However, the deficit shown by hearing-impaired listeners for amplified stimuli was relatively modest. Overall, hearing-impaired data and the results of a simulation study were consistent with a poorer-than-normal ability to reconstruct temporal-envelope information resulting from a broadening of cochlear filters by a factor ranging from 2 to 4. These results suggest that mild-to-moderate cochlear hearing loss has only a modest detrimental effect on peripheral, temporal-envelope reconstruction mechanisms

Envelope Coding in Auditory Nerve Fibers Following Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

Recent perceptual studies suggest that listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) have a reduced ability to use temporal fine-structure cues, whereas the effects of SNHL on temporal envelope cues are generally thought to be minimal. Several perceptual studies suggest that envelope coding may actually be enhanced following SNHL and that this effect may actually degrade listening in modulated maskers (e.g., competing talkers). The present study examined physiological effects of SNHL on envelope coding in auditory nerve (AN) fibers in relation to fine-structure coding. Responses were compared between anesthetized chinchillas with normal hearing and those with a mild–moderate noise-induced hearing loss. Temporal envelope coding of narrowband-modulated stimuli (sinusoidally amplitude-modulated tones and single-formant stimuli) was quantified with several neural metrics. The relative strength of envelope and fine-structure coding was compared using shuffled correlogram analyses. On average, the strength of envelope coding was enhanced in noise-exposed AN fibers. A high degree of enhanced envelope coding was observed in AN fibers with high thresholds and very steep rate-level functions, which were likely associated with severe outer and inner hair cell damage. Degradation in fine-structure coding was observed in that the transition between AN fibers coding primarily fine structure or envelope occurred at lower characteristic frequencies following SNHL. This relative fine-structure degradation occurred despite no degradation in the fundamental ability of AN fibers to encode fine structure and did not depend on reduced frequency selectivity. Overall, these data suggest the need to consider the relative effects of SNHL on envelope and fine-structure coding in evaluating perceptual deficits in temporal processing of complex stimuli