CIE electric-field spread flattens spectral contrast, obscuring formants needed for speech

Evidence

In CIs, spectral contrast is degraded because of the limited number of stimulation electrodes and overlapping electric fields activating the nervous system through the bony structure of the cochlea. This might reduce the differences in amplitudes between peaks and valleys in the input making it more difficult to locate spectral dominance (i.e., formants) which provide crucial cues to speech intelligibility and instrument identification. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1823

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to reader’s goal of understanding physiology-perception links: electrode spread reduces the neural representation of spectral peaks and valleys.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1823