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Vocal emotion recognition by normal-hearing listeners and cochlear implant users
Xin Luo1, Qian-Jie Fu, John J Galvin
1Department of Auditory Implants and Perception, House Ear Institute, Los Angeles, California 90057, USA. xluo@hei.org
Trends in Amplification
|November 16, 2007
Summary
Cochlear implant (CI) users struggle with vocal emotion recognition compared to normal-hearing individuals. Improving spectral resolution and amplitude cues in CI devices enhances emotion perception for both groups.
Area of Science:
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Speech Perception
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Vocal emotion recognition is crucial for social interaction.
- Cochlear implants (CIs) can alter acoustic cues essential for emotion perception.
- Limited research exists on how CI processing affects vocal emotion recognition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate vocal emotion recognition in normal-hearing listeners and CI users.
- To determine the impact of acoustic cue preservation (amplitude, spectral, temporal) on emotion recognition.
- To explore how CI device parameters influence emotion perception.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Compared emotion recognition in normal-hearing and CI users with preserved vs. normalized amplitude cues.
- Experiment 2: Tested CI users with varying numbers of channels and filter cutoff frequencies.
- Experiment 3: Simulated CI processing in normal-hearing listeners using different channel counts and filter cutoff frequencies.
Main Results:
- Normal-hearing listeners performed near-perfectly with preserved amplitude cues; CI users performed poorly.
- Removing amplitude cues degraded performance for both groups.
- Increasing channel count and filter cutoff frequency improved emotion recognition in both CI users and simulated CI conditions.
Conclusions:
- Spectral, temporal, and amplitude cues are vital for vocal emotion recognition.
- CI users' reduced performance is linked to diminished pitch perception and spectral resolution.
- Optimizing CI signal processing can potentially improve emotional prosody perception.
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