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The effect of temporal gap identification on speech perception by users of cochlear implants

Adam R. Kaiser
10021 Dupont Circle Ct., Fort Wayne, Indiana

Ted A. Meyer
Department of Otolaryngology – HNS, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina

Mario A. Svirsky
Department of Otolaryngology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York

Purpose: This study examined the ability of listeners using cochlear implants (CIs) and listeners with normal-hearing (NH) to identify silent gaps of different duration, and the relation of this ability to speech understanding in CI users.

Method: Sixteen NH adults and eleven postlingually deafened adults with CIs identified synthetic vowel-like stimuli that were either continuous or contained an intervening silent gap ranging from 15 to 90 ms. Cumulative d', an index of discriminability, was calculated for each participant. Consonant and CNC word identification tasks were administered to the CI group.

Results: Overall, the ability to identify stimuli with gaps of different duration was better for the NH group than for the CI group. Seven CI users had cumulative d' scores that were no higher than those of any NH listener, and their CNC word scores ranged from 0 to 30%. The other four CI users had cumulative d' scores within the range of the NH group, and their CNC word scores ranged from 46% to 68%. For the CI group, cumulative d' scores were significantly correlated with their speech testing scores.

Conclusions: The ability to identify silent gap duration may help explain individual differences in speech perception by CI users.

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