Open AccessEffect of Spectral Contrast Enhancement on Speech-on-Speech Intelligibility and Voice Cue Sensitivity in Cochlear Implant Users
Author(s) -
Nawal El Boghdady,
Florian Langner,
Étienne Gaudrain,
Deniz Başkent,
Waldo Nogueira
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ear and hearing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1538-4667
pISSN - 0196-0202
DOI - 10.1097/aud.0000000000000936
Subject(s) - intelligibility (philosophy) , cochlear implant , sentence , speech recognition , speech perception , comprehension , audiology , computer science , psychology , perception , natural language processing , medicine , philosophy , epistemology , neuroscience , programming language
Speech intelligibility in the presence of a competing talker (speech-on-speech; SoS) presents more difficulties for cochlear implant (CI) users compared with normal-hearing listeners. A recent study implied that these difficulties may be related to CI users' low sensitivity to two fundamental voice cues, namely, the fundamental frequency (F0) and the vocal tract length (VTL) of the speaker. Because of the limited spectral resolution in the implant, important spectral cues carrying F0 and VTL information are expected to be distorted. This study aims to address two questions: (1) whether spectral contrast enhancement (SCE), previously shown to enhance CI users' speech intelligibility in the presence of steady state background noise, could also improve CI users' SoS intelligibility, and (2) whether such improvements in SoS from SCE processing are due to enhancements in CI users' sensitivity to F0 and VTL differences between the competing talkers.