Improving music perception and appreciation for cochlear implant users

Hearing devices, such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, are commonly believed to be able to fully restore hearing abilities, much as a pair of glasses restores vision.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Although hearing devices restore the ability to understand speech remarkably well, music perception and appreciation are still problematic for most users. These problems need to be addressed, as they greatly impair the well-being and productivity of people with impaired hearing.

Read our blog Hearing Organised Sound for updates on the research project and related info.

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This program is currently focussing on several different projects:

Musical training in children with hearing loss

Soon after receiving a bionic ear, young children have an extensive training in speech recognition and language skills. However, musical training is often left to the parents, and to the child’s desire to learn.

Often a lack of immediate results compared to their friends with normal hearing reduces their motivation to play music. However, if the children and the teacher can anticipate their rate of learning they will be able to adjust their expectations and maintain motivation.

This project is dedicated to establish a learning scale of musical ability for children with a hearing impairment.

Funding: Deafness Foundation

Working with musicians

Musician, composer, and sound artist Robin Fox, in collaboration with the BEI, are creating a series of six new musical works specially designed for hearing-impaired music lovers.

Under Robin’s direction, six composers will work closely with bionic ear recipients, as well as the scientists and engineers who helped create the world's most successful multi-channel cochlear implant. The composers will respond to the strengths and limitations of the device, and produce works tailored specifically for cochlear implant users.

Outcomes
This project will result in a significant body of new musical works and a new dialogue between the arts and the sciences which will enrich the lives of hearing-impaired music lovers.

These works will be performed at a concert in late 2010, at which both people with normal hearing and those using cochlear implants will be able to enjoy and discuss their experiences with normal-hearing music-lovers, perhaps for the first time.

Funding: The Australian Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, The Australian Network for the Art and Technology, Cochlear Foundation.

Tactile music

Efforts to improve the perception and appreciation of music for cochlear implant recipients to date have focused primarily on the implant's hardware and signal processing strategy. The aim of this project is to utilise the cutaneous sensory system, as a means of conveying additional music information through the skin.

Combining an array of research disciplines, we hope to develop a new device that will use tactile (touch) stimulation to significantly improve the ability for hearing impaired people to enjoy music.

Improving auditory stream segregation

Music perception and intelligibility of speech in a noisy environment are related to the ability to segregate different sounds according to their source. We are studying ways to provide bionic ear users with enhanced electrical stimulation which will result in better perception of music and voice-pitch. 

Improving sound quality in cochlear implants

Different instruments have very different sounds. For instance, a trumpet and a violin playing the same note are easily distinguished. For cochlear implant users, however, distinguishing between different instruments, or between sounds that are harsh or smooth, can be difficult.

The ability to distinguish between different types of similar sounds is not only important to recognise a speaker's voice or a musical instrument. It also conveys emotional information through the harmony and the roughness of the sounds. It is therefore crucial in order to appreciate music.

We are currently testing how well cochlear implant users can tease apart melodies played with different types of sounds. This information will be to develop and testing new sound processing algorithms and training techniques to help cochlear implant users enjoy music.

Spike-based Temporal Auditory Representation (STAR)

STAR is a new sound processing strategy based on how sound is processed in the human auditory system.

Unlike most of the current strategies that stimulate each electrode at same fixed pulse rate, this strategy uses an adaptive pulsation rate where the pulse rate on each electrode is set according to the frequency of the incoming sound. Preliminary results have already shown a significant improvement of the perception of speech in a noisy environment.

Funding: NHMRC, Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and Victorian Lions Foundation.