Single versus multiple-channel electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve in speech processing for a totally deaf patient [Abstract]

Abstract

Auditory neurophysiological studies have provided evidence that frequency is coded on both a place and time basis. Psychophysical studies on patients with a profound or total postlingual hearing loss have established that electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve can also convey pitch sensations that depend on toe place or site of auditory nerve stimulation. Pitch perception is also related to the rate of stimulation (Tong et al., 1980).

The present study has been undertaken to determine whether a totally deaf patient can integrate both the place and time information from frequency coding in understanding speech signals. Audiological tests were performed to evaluate a totally deaf patient's perception of phonemes, words and sentences for single-channel stimulation that conveyed the fundamental frequency (FO) as rate of stimulation; and multiple-channel stimulation that presented the fundamental frequency as rate, and the second formant (F2) as place of stimulation. The results shown in the table indicate that multiplechannel stimulation provided significantly better scores than single-channel stimulation when using electrical stimulation alone. Furthermore, all scores were significantly better for multiple channel stimulation when combined with lip reading, except the MRT word test.

This is an abstract of a paper from the Proceedings of the Australian Physiological and Pharmacological Society published by Australian Physiological and Pharmacological Society. This version is reproduced with the permission of the publisher.