Pupillometry reveals effects of pitch manipulation within and across words on listening effort and short-term memory

For individuals with hearing loss, even successful speech communication comes at a cost. Cochlear implants transmit degraded information, specifically for voice pitch, which demands extra and sustained listening effort. The current study hypothesized that abnormal pitch patterns contribute to the additional listening effort, even in non-tonal language native speaking normally hearing listeners. We manipulated the fundamental frequency (F0) within and across words, while participants listen and repeat (simple intelligibility task), or listen, repeat, and later recall (concurrent encoding task) the words. In both experiments, the F0 manipulations resulted in small changes in intelligibility but no difference in free recall or subjective effort ratings. Pupillary metrics were yet sensitive to these manipulations: pupil dilations were larger when words were monotonized (flat contour) or inverted (the natural contour flipped upside-down), and larger when successive words were organized into a melodic pattern. The most likely interpretation is that the natural or expected F0 contour of a word contributes to its identity and facilitate its matching and retrieval from the phonological representation stored in long-term memory. Consequently, degrading words' F0 contour can result in extra listening effort. Our results call for solutions to improve pitch saliency and naturalness in future development of cochlear implants' signal processing strategies, even for non-tonal languages.