Investigating the MESA (multipoint electrotactile speech aid): the transmission of connected discourse

Three normal-hearing young adults were tested in their reception of connected discourse materials under two receiving conditions; visual-reception alone (lipreading) and visual reception in conjunction with an electrotactile speech aid (MESA). Subjects were artificially deafened with earplugs and white noise; all stimuli were delivered live-voice using a special tracking procedure. Analysis of the data suggests that after an initial period of learning, combined visual and electrotactile receptive performance exceeds lipreading-alone performance. After extensive learning however, performance in lipreading alone or MESA plus lipreading is practically equivalent.