[Multivariate study of auditory perception using multi-electrode cochlear implants].

The goal of this study was to determine the influence of auditory and cognitive factors in hearing or listening mechanisms with the Nucleus multielectrode cochlear implant. Accordingly, hearing sensitivity, psycho-acoustical masking functions and measures of temporal resolution were obtained from 14 adults with acquired deafness. In addition, six measures of open-set speech discrimination were introduced to represent a possible contribution of cognitive factors. Results indicated the contribution of both auditory and cognitive factors to speech understanding. Cognitive factors were most influential. Differences were also found in the relative importance of various cognitive factors, both before and after an intensive aural rehabilitation program. Initially, subjects relied more heavily on their ability to make efficient use of the linguistic redundancy of speech. At the end of the program, they paid more attention to speech acoustics, as a result of enhanced auditory spectral analysis and temporal resolution at about 2 kHz.