Development of a clinical test of musical perception: appreciation of music in cochlear implantees (AMICI)

The purpose of this study was to develop a test to assess the ability of persons with cochlear implants (CIs) to interpret musical signals. Up to this time, the main direction in outcomes studies of cochlear implantation has been in relation to speech recognition abilities. With improvement in CI hardware and processing strategies, there has been a growing interest in musical perception as a dimension that could improve greatly users' quality of life. The Appreciation of Music in Cochlear Implantees (AMICI) test was designed to measure the following abilities: discrimination of music versus noise; identification of musical instruments (from a closed set); identification of musical styles (from a closed set); and recognition of individual musical pieces (open set). The first phase of the study was test development and recording. The second phase entailed presentation of a large set of stimuli to normal listeners. Based on phase 2 findings, an item analysis was performed to eliminate stimuli that were confusing or resulted in high error rates in normals. In phase 3, hearing-impaired participants, using cochlear Implants, were assessed using the beta version of the AMICI test.