Contribution of Temporal Fine Structure Cues to Concurrent Vowel Identification and Perception of Zebra Speech

Delora Samantha Serrao; Nikhitha Theruvan; Hasna Fathima; Arivudai Nambi Pitchaimuthu

doi:10.1055/s-0044-1785456

International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology, Table of Contents

CC BY 4.0 · Int Arch Otorhinolaryngol 2024; 28(03): e492-e501
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1785456

Original Research

Contribution of Temporal Fine Structure Cues to Concurrent Vowel Identification and Perception of Zebra Speech

Authors

Delora Samantha Serrao

¹National Hearing Care, Armadale, Australia
Nikhitha Theruvan

²Department of Audiology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Hasna Fathima

³Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

⁴Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, National Institute of Speech and Hearing, Trivandrum, Kerala, India
Arivudai Nambi Pitchaimuthu

³Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

⁵Department of Audiology, Centre for Hearing Science, All India Institute of Speech & Hearing, Mysuru, India

Abstract

Introduction The limited access to temporal fine structure (TFS) cues is a reason for reduced speech-in-noise recognition in cochlear implant (CI) users. The CI signal processing schemes like electroacoustic stimulation (EAS) and fine structure processing (FSP) encode TFS in the low frequency whereas theoretical strategies such as frequency amplitude modulation encoder (FAME) encode TFS in all the bands.

Objective The present study compared the effect of simulated CI signal processing schemes that either encode no TFS, TFS information in all bands, or TFS only in low-frequency bands on concurrent vowel identification (CVI) and Zebra speech perception (ZSP).

Methods Temporal fine structure information was systematically manipulated using a 30-band sine-wave (SV) vocoder. The TFS was either absent (SV) or presented in all the bands as frequency modulations simulating the FAME algorithm or only in bands below 525 Hz to simulate EAS. Concurrent vowel identification and ZSP were measured under each condition in 15 adults with normal hearing.

Results The CVI scores did not differ between the 3 schemes (F ^{(2, 28)} = 0.62, p = 0.55, η² _p= 0.04). The effect of encoding TFS was observed for ZSP (F ^{(2, 28)} = 5.73, p = 0.008, η² _p= 0.29). Perception of Zebra speech was significantly better with EAS and FAME than with SV. There was no significant difference in ZSP scores obtained with EAS and FAME (p = 1.00)

Conclusion For ZSP, the TFS cues from FAME and EAS resulted in equivalent improvements in performance compared to the SV scheme. The presence or absence of TFS did not affect the CVI scores.

Keywords

cochlear implant - speech perception - hearing loss - psychoacoustics - auditory processing - algorithm

Full Text

References

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