Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Mar;8(1):119-33.
doi: 10.1007/s10162-006-0068-1. Epub 2007 Jan 10.

Concurrent sound segregation in electric and acoustic hearing

Affiliations

Concurrent sound segregation in electric and acoustic hearing

Robert P Carlyon et al. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2007 Mar.

Abstract

We investigated potential cues to sound segregation by cochlear implant (CI) and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. In each presentation interval of experiment 1a, CI listeners heard a mixture of four pulse trains applied concurrently to separate electrodes, preceded by a "probe" applied to a single electrode. In one of these two intervals, which the subject had to identify, the probe electrode was the same as a "target" electrode in the mixture. The pulse train on the target electrode had a higher level than the others in the mixture. Additionally, it could be presented either with a 200-ms onset delay, at a lower rate, or with an asynchrony produced by delaying each pulse by about 5 ms re those on the nontarget electrodes. Neither the rate difference nor the asynchrony aided performance over and above the level difference alone, but the onset delay produced a modest improvement. Experiment 1b showed that two subjects could perform the task using the onset delay alone, with no level difference. Experiment 2 used a method similar to that of experiment 1, but investigated the onset cue using NH listeners. In one condition, the mixture consisted of harmonics 5 to 40 of a 100-Hz fundamental, with the onset of either harmonics 13 to 17 or 26 to 30 delayed re the rest. Performance was modest in this condition, but could be improved markedly by using stimuli containing a spectral gap between the target and nontarget harmonics. The results suggest that (a) CI users are unlikely to use temporal pitch differences between adjacent channels to separate concurrent sounds, and that (b) they can use onset differences between channels, but the usefulness of this cue will be compromised by the spread of excitation along the nerve-fiber array. This deleterious effect of spread-of-excitation can also impair the use of onset cues by NH listeners.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1
FIG. 1
(a) A schematic representation of the stimuli in two halves of a two-interval forced choice trial in the baseline condition of experiment 1, for a trial where the target is on channel B. The “taller” pulses of the target channel in the mixture represent their enhanced amplitude re those on the nontarget channels. Fewer pulses per stimulus are shown than were actually presented. (b) A representation of the stimuli in the Δrate condition. The difference in pulse rate between the target and nontarget channels has been exaggerated for clarity. (c) A representation of the stimuli in the Delay condition.
FIG. 2
FIG. 2
Schematic of the timing of the pulses in the different channels of the mixture in the Δrate and Asynch conditions of experiment 1a. Fewer pulses per stimulus are shown than were actually presented. The example shows a case where the target was on channel B.
FIG. 3
FIG. 3
Schematic showing a close-up of the relative timing of the pulses in the different channels comprising the mixture in the baseline condition for a trial in which the target was on electrode B.
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
(a) Performance for each subject and condition for experiment 1a. (b) The change in performance for various conditions relative to the baseline condition. In both cases, percent correct is averaged across trials when the target was on electrode B and when it was on electrode C.
FIG. 5
FIG. 5
Performance for two subjects in experiment 1b. Asterisks indicate conditions where performance differed significantly from chance (50%). Percent correct is averaged across trials when the target was on electrode B and when it was on electrode C.
FIG. 6
FIG. 6
Schematic spectrogram of the stimuli in two trials in the Pulse condition of experiment 2. The signal is in interval 1 of trial A and in interval 2 of trial B.
FIG. 7
FIG. 7
The five left-most clusters of bars in (a) show performance, measured in percent correct, for five NH listeners in the Pulse, PulseGap, and Noise conditions of experiment 2. The right-most cluster of bars shows performance averaged across listeners. (b) is similar to (a) but shows performance in those conditions where the targets consisted of single frequency components.
FIG. 8
FIG. 8
Excitation patterns, derived from the procedure described by Moore et al. (1997), for the Pulse condition of experiment 2. The solid line shows the case where all components are present. The dotted line shows the case where harmonics 26–30 have not yet been turned on; there is a 9-dB dip in the excitation pattern relative to the solid line. A similar but larger dip occurred when the lower target harmonics (13–17) were absent.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'DOI', 'value': '10.1016/j.heares.2004.06.008', 'is_inner': False, 'url': 'https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2004.06.008'}, {'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '15464301', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15464301/'}]}
    2. Baumann U, Nobbe A. Pulse rate discrimination with deeply inserted electrode arrays. Hear. Res. 196:49–57, 2004. - PubMed
    1. None
    2. Bench J, Bamford J. Speech–Hearing Tests and the Spoken Language of Hearing-Impaired Children. London, Academic, 1979.
    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'DOI', 'value': '10.1007/s10162-003-3057-7', 'is_inner': False, 'url': 'https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-003-3057-7'}, {'type': 'PMC', 'value': 'PMC2538368', 'is_inner': False, 'url': 'https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2538368/'}, {'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '14564662', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14564662/'}]}
    2. Bierer JA, Middlebrooks JC. Cortical responses to cochlear implant stimulation: channel interactions. J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. 5:32–48, 2004. - PMC - PubMed
    1. None
    2. Bregman AS. Auditory Scene Analysis. Cambridge, MA, M.I.T. Press, 1990.
    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '728845', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/728845/'}]}
    2. Bregman AS, Pinker S. Auditory streaming and the building of timbre. Can. J. Psychol. 32:19–31, 1978. - PubMed

Publication types