Music and CI Lab, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, 1165, Denmark.
Oticon A/S, Smørum, 2765, Denmark.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2024 May 1;155(5):3101-3117. doi: 10.1121/10.0025854.
Cochlear implant (CI) users often report being unsatisfied by music listening through their hearing device. Vibrotactile stimulation could help alleviate those challenges. Previous research has shown that musical stimuli was given higher preference ratings by normal-hearing listeners when concurrent vibrotactile stimulation was congruent in intensity and timing with the corresponding auditory signal compared to incongruent. However, it is not known whether this is also the case for CI users. Therefore, in this experiment, we presented 18 CI users and 24 normal-hearing listeners with five melodies and five different audio-to-tactile maps. Each map varied the congruence between the audio and tactile signals related to intensity, fundamental frequency, and timing. Participants were asked to rate the maps from zero to 100, based on preference. It was shown that almost all normal-hearing listeners, as well as a subset of the CI users, preferred tactile stimulation, which was congruent with the audio in intensity and timing. However, many CI users had no difference in preference between timing aligned and timing unaligned stimuli. The results provide evidence that vibrotactile music enjoyment enhancement could be a solution for some CI users; however, more research is needed to understand which CI users can benefit from it most.
人工耳蜗使用者在通过听力设备聆听音乐时经常感到不满意。振动触觉刺激可能有助于缓解这些挑战。先前的研究表明，与不匹配相比，当正常听力听众同时接受强度和时间上与相应听觉信号相匹配的振动触觉刺激时，他们会对音乐刺激给予更高的偏好评分。然而，目前尚不清楚这是否也适用于人工耳蜗使用者。因此，在这项实验中，我们向 18 名人工耳蜗使用者和 24 名正常听力听众展示了五首旋律和五种不同的音频到触觉映射。每个映射都改变了与强度、基频和时间相关的音频和触觉信号之间的一致性。参与者根据偏好从 0 到 100 对地图进行评分。结果表明，几乎所有正常听力听众以及一部分人工耳蜗使用者都更喜欢与音频在强度和时间上相匹配的触觉刺激。然而，许多人工耳蜗使用者在时间对齐和时间不对齐刺激之间的偏好没有差异。结果提供了证据表明，振动触觉音乐享受增强可能是一些人工耳蜗使用者的解决方案；然而，需要进一步研究以了解哪些人工耳蜗使用者最能从中受益。
