Pralus Agathe, Hermann Ruben, Cholvy Fanny, Aguera Pierre-Emmanuel, Moulin Annie, Barone Pascal, Grimault Nicolas, Truy Eric, Tillmann Barbara, Caclin Anne
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, CNRS, UMR5292, INSERM, U1028, F-69000 Lyon, France.
Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, F-69000 Villeurbanne, France.
J Clin Med. 2021 May 13;10(10):2093. doi: 10.3390/jcm10102093.
In the case of hearing loss, cochlear implants (CI) allow for the restoration of hearing. Despite the advantages of CIs for speech perception, CI users still complain about their poor perception of their auditory environment. Aiming to assess non-verbal auditory perception in CI users, we developed five listening tests. These tests measure pitch change detection, pitch direction identification, pitch short-term memory, auditory stream segregation, and emotional prosody recognition, along with perceived intensity ratings. In order to test the potential benefit of visual cues for pitch processing, the three pitch tests included half of the trials with visual indications to perform the task. We tested 10 normal-hearing (NH) participants with material being presented as original and vocoded sounds, and 10 post-lingually deaf CI users. With the vocoded sounds, the NH participants had reduced scores for the detection of small pitch differences, and reduced emotion recognition and streaming abilities compared to the original sounds. Similarly, the CI users had deficits for small differences in the pitch change detection task and emotion recognition, as well as a decreased streaming capacity. Overall, this assessment allows for the rapid detection of specific patterns of non-verbal auditory perception deficits. The current findings also open new perspectives about how to enhance pitch perception capacities using visual cues.
在听力损失的情况下，人工耳蜗（CI）可恢复听力。尽管人工耳蜗在言语感知方面具有优势，但人工耳蜗使用者仍抱怨他们对听觉环境的感知较差。为了评估人工耳蜗使用者的非言语听觉感知，我们开发了五项听力测试。这些测试测量音高变化检测、音高方向识别、音高短期记忆、听觉流分离和情感韵律识别，以及感知强度评级。为了测试视觉线索对音高处理的潜在益处，三项音高测试包括一半带有视觉指示以执行任务的试验。我们用原始声音和编码声音呈现材料，测试了10名听力正常（NH）的参与者和10名语后聋人工耳蜗使用者。对于编码声音，与原始声音相比，听力正常的参与者在检测微小音高差异方面得分降低，情感识别和流分离能力也降低。同样，人工耳蜗使用者在音高变化检测任务中的微小差异和情感识别方面存在缺陷，并且流分离能力下降。总体而言，这种评估有助于快速检测非言语听觉感知缺陷的特定模式。目前的研究结果也为如何利用视觉线索提高音高感知能力开辟了新的视角。
