Musically evoked emotions in cochlear implant users and those with no known hearing loss

Cochlear implants provide the profoundly deaf excellent speech comprehension; however, perception and appreciation of music remains a challenge. Previous work suggests that cochlear implant users, compared to normal-hearing listeners, have diminished perception of certain musically evoked emotions due to deficits in hearing pitch-related musical elements. The purpose of this study was to investigate how well cochlear implants users use pitch-based information to identify the emotional intent of music.

Twenty-six cochlear implant users and 24 peers with no known hearing loss completed a set of online auditory measures. Participants were asked to rate the valence and arousal of 10 happy, 10 sad, 10 scary, and 10 peaceful melodies as categorized by Vieillard et al. (2008). Melodies that were previously categorized as peaceful and sad were then altered from major to minor modes (peaceful to peaceful-modified) and from minor to major (sad to sad-modified), respectively. Additionally, the tempo of these melodies was controlled at 60 beats per minute. Participants then valence and arousal of these 10 sad, 10 sad-modified, 10 peaceful, and 10 peaceful-modified melodies. Participants completed a series pitch perception tasks including major and minor melody and arpeggio discrimination and melodic contour identification. During data analysis, correlations between valence and arousal ratings, major and minor melody and arpeggio discrimination scores, and melodic contour identification scores were assessed.

When listening to the unmodified melodies from Viellaird et al. (2008), both cochlear implant users and those with no known hearing loss rated happy melodies more distinctly in valence and arousal than sad, peaceful, and scary melodies. Cochlear implant users rated the valence of sad and peaceful melodies more similarly compared to those with no known hearing loss. When listening to the modified melodies, cochlear implant users rated original and modified sad and peaceful melodies similarly on the dimensions of valence and arousal. This contrasts with results found in those with no known hearing loss who utilized mode changes to rate melodies in major modes higher in valence than melodies in minor modes. For major and minor melody and arpeggio discrimination, those with no known hearing loss performed close to or at ceiling while cochlear implant users mostly performed in the chance range. Finally, for melodic contour identification, many cochlear implant users performed significantly worse than those with no known hearing loss.

This study further reveals the challenges that cochlear implant patients face in using modal cues to perceive the emotional intent of music. While cochlear implant users are able to utilize tempo cues to derive the emotional intent of melodies to an extent, they struggle once these cues are taken away. Therefore, the data presented here provides a foundation upon which to explore how pitch-based training may improve cochlear implant users' perception of musical mode. Given the ubiquity of using mode to communicate musical emotional intent, pitch-based training may in turn lead to enhanced music appreciation among cochlear implant users.