Graeme Clark Collection
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ItemPreliminary results on spectral shape perception and discrimination of musical sounds by normal hearing subjects and cochlear implantees( 1997)This paper presents an overview of an ongoing research project investigating the perception of musical timbre by people with normal hearing, impaired hearing, and cochlear implants. The investigation of musical timbre has been limited to the perception of steady-state frequency spectra from 10 different sources, including sampled acoustic instruments, sung vowels, and synthetic waveforms. Subjects were tested in three different tasks: I) the discrimination of spectra when presented in all possible pairs; 2) the measurement of the internally-perceived frequency spectra using a forward-masking paradigm; and 3) the identification of the spectra by name with the restricted set of sound sources from which they were sampled. Preliminary results from the normally hearing subjects show the spectra to be 99.8% distinguishable, and that significant detail is evident in the internal spectral envelopes from different sounds. There was around 50%-correct identification of stimuli by name with the original sound sources from which they were sampled. The experimental work with hearing impaired and cochlear implant subjects has commenced.
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ItemSpeech cues for cochlear implantees: spectral discrimination(Monduzzi Editore, 1997)The relationship between the ability of cochlear implantees to perceive speech and their ability to discriminate between stimulation on adjacent electrodes was investigated. Speech perception ability was assessed with monosyllabic words in 8 users Nucleus cochlear prosthesis. The ability of these subjects to discriminate between stimulation on adjacent electrodes, in of random loudness differences between electrodes was determined. Results were averaged in the apical, mid and basal regions of the cochlea. Regression analysis showed that speech perception ability and electrode discrimination ability were correlated in the apical to mid region of the cochlea. but the two factors were not correlated in the basal region. Therefore, these results suggest that implantees require the ability to discriminate between stimulation on adjacent electrodes in the apical to mid region of the cochlea in order to achieve high speech perception scores.
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ItemSpeech processing for cochlear implants: variations of the spectral maxima sound processor( 1993)The Spectral Maxima Sound Processor (SMSP) incorporates a bank of sixteen band-pass filters which are assigned to sixteen intracochlear electrodes. In each stimulation period six electrodes are activated, based on the outputs of the filters with the largest amplitudes. The SMSP has been compared with the present MSP(MULTIPEAK) processor and found to improve speech comprehension results. The SMSP speech processing scheme has recently been implemented successfully in a new speech processor, also developed at the University of Melbourne, which utilises digital signal processing techniques. The programming flexibility of the new processor has facilitated the investigation of variations of the SMSP strategy which might provide further enhancement of speech perception. Three variations have been investigated: firstly, increasing the constant pulse rate from the usual 250Hz to 400Hz; secondly, changing the number of electrodes selected in each stimulation period from six to numbers between four and eight; thirdly, sharpening the spectral peaks prior to selection of the active electrodes. The results of these studies showed that all three variations had minimal effect on speech perception in quiet, but that increasing the number of electrodes selected for stimulation to eight, or increasing the rate of stimulation, may have advantages when listening in background noise.
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ItemAn extension of the Multipeak speech processing strategy for the MSP/MINI 22 cochlear implant system( 1992)The speech perception of three post-linguistically deaf adults using the Nucleus MSP/Mini System 22 cochlear implant system programmed with a new speech processing strategy, MPEAK+AO. was evaluated. The MPEAK+AO strategy retains all the information of the standard Multipeak speech processing strategy and additionally presents acoustic components below 400Hz to the most-apical electrode. This extra spectral Information may help implantees understand speech, particularly in noise. Since the estimated fundamental frequency is presented as the rate of stimulation at a fixed intracochlear site and is thereby potentially perceived more easily. and the amplitude of the stimulation on the apical electrode, associated with the voice fundamental, Is directly determined from the estimated energy in the relevant spectral region. these coding factors may provide a better representation ot the prosodic information in speech and a more complete auditory feedback signal. The comparison between Multipeak and MPEAK+AO included tests of vowel, consonant and CNC word recognition. Speech materials were presented with both a male and female speaker. Sentence material. presented with background masking noise (four-speaker babble) was also used. The results showed that the new strategy significantly improved the ability of these MSP users to recognise words in open-set sentences in noisy conditions.
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ItemA new algorithm for voicing detection and voice pitch estimation based on the neocognitron( 1992)Over the last decade cochlear implants have been used increasingly to restore hearing to the profoundly deaf. One of the more widely used implants is the Nucleus multi-electrode implant, developed by the University of Melbourne and Cochlear Pty. Ltd. The speech processor used with this implant is the MSP, programmed with the multipeak strategy. This device incorporates circuits to estimate the fundamental frequency (FO) of speech signals, and to decide whether voicing is present. This paper describes a new FO estimator and voicing detection algorithm based on the neocognitron; a neural network modelled on the retina and early visual system. Performance was compared with that of three other FO estimation algorithms: linear predictive coding (LPC), cepstral analysis and the algorithm used in the Multipeak-MSP processor. For the speech samples tested, the neocognitron performed more reliably than the other three systems. On the basis of these results, this work may be able to provide benefits to existing and future cochlear implant users.