Comparison of Two Cochlear Implant Speech-Processing Strategies

Abstract

Speech processors extracting either the fundamental frequency (F0) alone, or the fundamental frequency combined with second formant information (F0-F2), have been evaluated on a totally deaf patient using a multiple-channel cochlear implant. A closed set test using 16 spondees and a modified rhyme test showed that for electrical stimulation alone the F0-F2 speech processor was significantly better than the F0 processor. The open set tests using phonetically balanced words and Central Institute for the Deaf everyday sentences showed that for electrical stimulation alone and electrical stimulation combined with lipreading, the results with the F0-F2 speech processor were all significantly better than with the F0 processor. Information transmission for consonant speech features was also better when using the F0-F2 processor.