Speech masking release in hybrid cochlear implant users

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viral Dinesh Tejani
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Masking Release

Spectral masking release with HiRes120 sound processing in cochlear implant users

2008 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 3863-3863
Author(s):  
Julie Bestel ◽  
Olivier Sterkers ◽  
Bruno Frachet ◽  
Bernard Meyer ◽  
Eric Truy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Sound Processing ◽  
Masking Release ◽  
Spectral Masking

scholarly journals Masking Effects in the Perception of Multiple Simultaneous Talkers in Normal-Hearing and Cochlear Implant Listeners

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 233121652091610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biao Chen ◽  
Ying Shi ◽  
Lifang Zhang ◽  
Zhiming Sun ◽  
Yongxin Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Speech Signals ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Voice Pitch ◽  
Masking Release ◽  
Tone Recognition ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Lexical Tone Recognition ◽  
Extract Information

For normal-hearing (NH) listeners, monaural factors, such as voice pitch cues, may play an important role in the segregation of speech signals in multitalker environments. However, cochlear implant (CI) users experience difficulties in segregating speech signals in multitalker environments in part due to the coarse spectral resolution. The present study examined how the vocal characteristics of the target and masking talkers influence listeners’ ability to extract information from a target phrase in a multitalker environment. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were measured with one, two, or four masker talkers for different combinations of target-masker vocal characteristics in 10 adult Mandarin-speaking NH listeners and 12 adult Mandarin-speaking CI users. The results showed that CI users performed significantly poorer than NH listeners in the presence of competing talkers. As the number of masker talkers increased, the mean SRTs significantly worsened from –22.0 dB to –5.2 dB for NH listeners but significantly improved from 5.9 dB to 2.8 dB for CI users. The results suggest that the flattened peaks and valleys with increased numbers of competing talkers may reduce NH listeners’ ability to use dips in the spectral and temporal envelopes that allow for “glimpses” of the target speech. However, the flattened temporal envelope of the resultant masker signals may be less disruptive to the amplitude contour of the target speech, which is important for Mandarin-speaking CI users’ lexical tone recognition. The amount of masking release was further estimated by comparing SRTs between the same-sex maskers and the different-sex maskers. There was a large amount of masking release in NH adults (12 dB) and a small but significant amount of masking release in CI adults (2 dB). These results suggest that adult CI users may significantly benefit from voice pitch differences between target and masker speech.

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