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Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Effects of spectral smearing on speech understanding and masking release in simulated bilateral cochlear implants
Margaret Cychosz1, Kevin Xu2, Qian-Jie Fu2
1Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
Abstract:
Differences in spectro-temporal degradation may explain some variability in cochlear implant users' speech outcomes. The present study employs vocoder simulations on listeners with typical hearing to evaluate how differences in degree of channel interaction across ears affects spatial speech recognition. Speech recognition thresholds and spatial release from masking were measured in 16 normal-hearing subjects listening to simulated bilateral cochlear implants. 16-channel sine-vocoded speech simulated limited, broad, or mixed channel interaction, in dichotic and diotic target-masker conditions, across ears. Thresholds were highest with broad channel interaction in both ears but improved when interaction decreased in one ear and again in both ears. Masking release was apparent across conditions. Results from this simulation study on listeners with typical hearing show that channel interaction may impact speech recognition more than masking release, and may have implications for the effects of channel interaction on cochlear implant users' speech recognition outcomes.
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