Voice discrimination in cochlear-implanted deaf subjects

• Published in: Hearing research Vol. 275; no. 1; pp. 120 - 129
• Main Authors: Massida, Z., Belin, P., James, C., Rouger, J., Fraysse, B., Barone, P., Deguine, O.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.05.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Acoustics; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - physiology; Cochlear Implantation - methods; Cochlear Implants; Deafness - therapy; Ear and associated structures. Auditory pathways and centers. Hearing. Vocal organ. Phonation. Sound production. Echolocation; Ear, auditive nerve, cochleovestibular tract, facial nerve: diseases, semeiology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Life Sciences; Linguistics; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Neurons and Cognition; Non tumoral diseases; Otorhinolaryngology. Stomatology; Reaction Time; Speech Perception - physiology; Time Factors; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Human; Implant; Auditory disorder; Activation; Crossmodal interaction; Recovery; Hearing loss; Improvement; Hearing; Discrimination; Dynamics; ENT disease; Speech; Perception
• ISSN: 0378-5955; 1878-5891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2010.12.010

The human voice is important for social communication because voices carry speech and other information such as a person’s physical characteristics and affective state. Further restricted temporal cortical regions are specifically involved in voice processing. In cochlear-implanted deaf patients, the processor alters the spectral cues which are crucial for the perception of the paralinguistic information of human voices. The aim of this study was to assess the abilities of voice discrimination in cochlear-implant (CI) users and in normal-hearing subjects (NHS) using a CI simulation (vocoder). In NHS the performance in voice discrimination decreased when reducing the spectral information by decreasing the number of channels of the vocoder. In CI patients with different delays after implantation we observed a strong impairment in voice discrimination at time of activation of the neuroprosthesis. No significant improvement can be detected in patients after two years of experience of the implant while they have reached a higher level of recovery of speech perception, suggesting a dissociation in the dynamic of functional recuperation of speech and voice processing. In addition to the lack of spectral cues due to the implant processor, we hypothesized that the origin of such deficit could derive from a crossmodal reorganization of the temporal voice areas in CI patients. ►Vocoder affects voice detection in normal-hearing subjects. ►Speech Voices detection are less affected by vocoder than Non-Speech Voices. ►Cochlear-implanted patients have poor performance of voice detection compared to the normal-hearing subjects, and do not improve with the experience of implant.