Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 28, 2026

Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea
Published on: May 10, 2019
Fundamental frequency is critical to speech perception in noise in combined acoustic and electric hearing
Jeff Carroll1, Stephanie Tiaden, Fan-Gang Zeng
1Hearing and Speech Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-5320, USA.
Abstract:
Cochlear implant (CI) users have been shown to benefit from residual low-frequency hearing, specifically in pitch related tasks. It remains unclear whether this benefit is dependent on fundamental frequency (F0) or other acoustic cues. Three experiments were conducted to determine the role of F0, as well as its frequency modulated (FM) and amplitude modulated (AM) components, in speech recognition with a competing voice. In simulated CI listeners, the signal-to-noise ratio was varied to estimate the 50% correct response. Simulation results showed that the F0 cue contributes to a significant proportion of the benefit seen with combined acoustic and electric hearing, and additionally that this benefit is due to the FM rather than the AM component. In actual CI users, sentence recognition scores were collected with either the full F0 cue containing both the FM and AM components or the 500-Hz low-pass speech cue containing the F0 and additional harmonics. The F0 cue provided a benefit similar to the low-pass cue for speech in noise, but not in quiet. Poorer CI users benefited more from the F0 cue than better users. These findings suggest that F0 is critical to improving speech perception in noise in combined acoustic and electric hearing.
Related Concept Videos
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...
Hearing
Auditory Perception
Perception of Sound Waves
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same frequency...
The Cochlea
Sound Intensity Level
The human ear can perceive an extensive range of sound intensity, necessitating the use of the logarithmic scale to define a physical quantity—the intensity level. It is a ratio of two intensities and hence a...

