Performance of compressed analogue (CA) and continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) coding strategies for cochlear...

Speech understanding with compressed analogue (CA) and continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) coding strategies for cochlear implants was compared in quiet and in noise at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of 15, 10 and 5 dB. The speech recognition of three experienced users of the Ineraid cochlear implant (CA coding strategy) was assessed using a set of sentence, vowel and consonant tests. Three weeks after the fitting of a CIS processor, the tests were repeated with the new device. Speech recognition scores for the sentence and consonant tests tended to be higher with the CIS processor in no or little noise, but lower in the test situations with less favourable SNRs, when compared to the CA processor (average score differences for the consonant test: +7.8% correct at 15 dB SNR; -6.8% correct at 5 dB SNR; p = 0.05). Results for the vowel test were slightly lower on average for the CIS processing strategy at all SNRs. A possible explanation for the differences in performance between CIS and CA in the consonant and sentence tests at different SNRs is the generally higher free-field threshold associated with the CA coding strategy, which may act as a single-channel noise suppression.