Perceived Sound Quality Of Different Signal Processing Algorithms By Cochlear Implant Listeners In Real-World Acoustic Environments

Author ORCID Identifier

King Chung:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5052-584X

Publication Title

Journal of Communication Disorders

ISSN

219924

E-ISSN

18737994

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Well-documented benefits of noise-reduction technologies in laboratories do not always yield a significant difference in real-world acoustic environments. Many possible reasons were proposed and studied to address this discrepancy. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of different noise reduction strategies for cochlear implants in real-world acoustic environments. Sixteen listeners were fit with hearing aid preprocessors with electrical outputs and cochlear implant speech processors receiving the electrical inputs. The preprocessors were programmed to 1) no noise reduction: omnidirectional microphone (OMNI), 2) moderate noise reduction: a combination of omnidirectional and adaptive directional microphone modes with modulation-based noise reduction (TRI+NR); and 3) maximum noise reduction: adaptive directional microphone in all frequency channels with NR (ADM+NR). Listeners listened to sentences in a noisy café, a noisy restaurant, and a quiet hotel lobby. They were instructed to rate the overall sound quality preference, ease of listening, speech intelligibility, and listening comfort of sentences using a paired-comparison categorical rating paradigm. Results indicate cochlear implant listeners had no microphone preference in quiet but they preferred adaptive directional microphones in noisy environments. The paired-comparison categorical rating paradigm is a viable means to evaluate the benefits of signal processing strategies in real-world acoustic environments.

Publication Date

1-1-2020

DOI

10.1016/j.jcomdis.2019.105973

PubMed ID

31901876

Keywords

Categorical rating, Cochlear implant, Directional microphone, Noise reduction, Paired-comparison, Sound quality

Department

School of Allied Health and Communicative Disorders

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