Deactivating cochlear electrodes with indistinct pitch responses improves speech perception for most users
Evidence
Work by Saleh (Saleh et al. 2013 ; Saleh 2013 ) using listeners with more up-to-date sound processing strategies also demonstrated positive findings when deactivating electrodes. They based channel selection on acoustic pitch ranking. Electrodes were identified for deactivation if they did not provide distinct or tonotopic pitch information. Twenty-five participants were enrolled. They received take-home experimental maps for a 1-month time period before being assessed. Assessments were conducted with the clinical map at baseline and again following experience with the experimental map. They found statistically significant improvements for electrode deactivation on speech perception tests for 16 of the 25 participants (67 %). For the Cochlear users 56 % (five out of nine) gained benefit compared to 69 % for the AB and MED-EL users (11 out of 16). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2057
Zwolan et al. ( 1997 ) assessed users of an older generation Cochlear device (Mini-22) stimulated in bipolar mode using an MPEAK sound processing strategy. They demonstrated positive results when deactivating electrodes based on pitch discrimination. Testing was acute with care to randomise between clinical and experimental maps in the assessment, but the experimental map exposure was far briefer than that of the clinical map. They found significant improvements in speech perception in at least one speech test for seven out of nine participants; while two participants showed a significant decrease on at least one speech test. This study demonstrated some benefit from channel deactivation for Cochlear users; however the MPEAK strategy was based on feature extraction and not n-of-m. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2056
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2057; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 2056