International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research, Center for Research on Brain, Language and Music, Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Québec, Canada; Neurology Department, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA.
Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, McGill University, Québec, Canada; Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, King Abdulaziz University, Rabigh Medical College, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Hear Res. 2018 Dec;370:272-282. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2018.08.009. Epub 2018 Aug 25.
Cochlear implants can successfully restore hearing in profoundly deaf individuals and enable speech comprehension. However, the acoustic signal provided is severely degraded and, as a result, many important acoustic cues for perceiving emotion in voices and music are unavailable. The deficit of cochlear implant users in auditory emotion processing has been clearly established. Yet, the extent to which this deficit and the specific cues that remain available to cochlear implant users are unknown due to several confounding factors. Here we assessed the recognition of the most basic forms of auditory emotion and aimed to identify which acoustic cues are most relevant to recognize emotions through cochlear implants. To do so, we used stimuli that allowed vocal and musical auditory emotions to be comparatively assessed while controlling for confounding factors. These stimuli were used to evaluate emotion perception in cochlear implant users (Experiment 1) and to investigate emotion perception in natural versus cochlear implant hearing in the same participants with a validated cochlear implant simulation approach (Experiment 2). Our results showed that vocal and musical fear was not accurately recognized by cochlear implant users. Interestingly, both experiments found that timbral acoustic cues (energy and roughness) correlate with participant ratings for both vocal and musical emotion bursts in the cochlear implant simulation condition. This suggests that specific attention should be given to these cues in the design of cochlear implant processors and rehabilitation protocols (especially energy, and roughness). For instance, music-based interventions focused on timbre could improve emotion perception and regulation, and thus improve social functioning, in children with cochlear implants during development.
人工耳蜗可以成功地为极重度聋患者恢复听力并使他们能够理解言语。然而，提供的声学信号严重受损，因此，许多用于感知语音和音乐中的情感的重要声学线索都无法获得。人工耳蜗使用者在听觉情感处理方面的缺陷已经得到明确证实。然而，由于存在许多混杂因素，人工耳蜗使用者的这种缺陷程度以及他们仍然可以获得的特定线索尚不清楚。在这里，我们评估了对听觉情感最基本形式的识别能力，并旨在确定通过人工耳蜗识别情感的最相关的声学线索。为此，我们使用了允许对语音和音乐听觉情感进行比较评估的刺激，同时控制混杂因素。这些刺激用于评估人工耳蜗使用者的情感感知（实验 1），并使用经过验证的人工耳蜗模拟方法在相同的参与者中调查自然听觉与人工耳蜗听觉的情感感知（实验 2）。我们的结果表明，语音和音乐恐惧不能被人工耳蜗使用者准确识别。有趣的是，两个实验都发现，音色声学线索（能量和粗糙度）与参与者在人工耳蜗模拟条件下对语音和音乐情感爆发的评分相关。这表明在人工耳蜗处理器和康复方案的设计中应特别注意这些线索（尤其是能量和粗糙度）。例如，基于音乐的干预措施侧重于音色，可以改善儿童在发展过程中使用人工耳蜗的情感感知和调节能力，从而提高社交功能。
