Perception of speaker sincerity in complex social interactions by cochlear implant users

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Communication Sciences
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding speaker sincerity (sarcasm, teasing) is vital for social interaction.
• Cochlear implant (CI) users often have difficulty perceiving suprasegmental cues crucial for detecting insincerity.
• Degraded auditory information in CI users can impair the perception of nuanced social communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To measure the perception of speaker sincerity in adults with CIs.
• To investigate the impact of audio-only versus audio-visual presentation on sincerity perception.
• To determine the role of verbal context and contralateral hearing aid use in identifying insincere language.

Main Methods:

• 16 adults with CIs participated in the study.
• Participants viewed video recordings of social interactions, with and without verbal context.
• Perception of sincerity was assessed using an established video inventory, with audio-only and audio-visual conditions.

Main Results:

• CI users frequently failed to identify speaker sincerity, even when understanding conversation content.
• Perception of insincere utterances was more challenging than sincere ones.
• Visual cues, verbal context, and contralateral hearing aid use significantly improved sincerity perception.

Conclusions:

• Speech recognition alone does not fully capture CI user outcomes.
• Social communication functions, including sincerity perception, are critical areas for assessment in CI users.
• Cognitive resources may be shared between processing auditory content and visual cues for sincerity detection.