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Related Experiment Videos

Cochlear implant speech recognition with speech maskers.

Ginger S Stickney1, Fan-Gang Zeng, Ruth Litovsky

  • 1University of California, Department of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery, Irvine, California 92697-1275, USA. stickney@uci.edu

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|September 21, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Cochlear implants struggle with speech recognition in noisy environments. Unlike normal hearing, cochlear implant users and simulations show no benefit from competing talkers over steady noise, indicating significant informational masking.

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Area of Science:

  • Auditory Neuroscience
  • Speech Perception
  • Hearing Technology

Background:

  • Speech recognition is challenging for cochlear implant (CI) users, especially with background noise.
  • Understanding the impact of different masker types on CI speech perception is crucial for improving device performance.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare speech recognition in normal-hearing (NH) listeners and CI listeners (and NH listeners simulating CI) using steady noise versus competing talker maskers.
  • To investigate the role of informational masking and modulation interference in CI speech recognition.

Main Methods:

  • NH and CI listeners, plus NH listeners using a vocoder simulation, performed speech recognition tasks.
  • Stimuli included target sentences with either speech-spectrum-shaped noise or competing talkers (same/different gender) at various target-to-masker ratios.

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  • NH listeners' performance with unprocessed stimuli was compared to performance with vocoded stimuli simulating CI processing.

    • Main Results:

    • NH listeners showed high intelligibility and a masking release effect with competing talkers compared to noise.
    • CI listeners and NH listeners using the CI simulation did not exhibit a masking release effect.
    • Performance in the CI and simulation groups did not improve with different talkers as maskers, unlike the NH control group.

    Conclusions:

    • The lack of masking release in CI users suggests significant informational masking and modulation interference.
    • Reduced spectral resolution in cochlear implants may increase target-masker similarity, contributing to informational masking.
    • These findings highlight key challenges in CI speech processing, particularly with complex, fluctuating maskers.