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Binaural jitter improves interaural time-difference sensitivity of cochlear implantees at high pulse rates.

ABSTRACT: Interaural time difference (ITD) arises whenever a sound outside of the median plane arrives at the two ears. There is evidence that ITD in the rapidly varying fine structure of a sound is most important for sound localization and for understanding speech in noise. Cochlear implants (CIs), neural prosthetic devices that restore hearing in the profoundly deaf, are increasingly implanted to both ears to provide implantees with the advantages of binaural hearing. CI listeners have been shown to be sensitive to fine structure ITD at low pulse rates, but their sensitivity declines at higher pulse rates that are required for speech coding. We hypothesize that this limitation in electric stimulation is at least partially due to binaural adaptation associated with periodic stimulation. Here, we show that introducing binaurally synchronized jitter in the stimulation timing causes large improvements in ITD sensitivity at higher pulse rates. Our experimental results demonstrate that a purely temporal trigger can cause recovery from binaural adaptation. Thus, binaurally jittered stimulation may improve several aspects of binaural hearing in bilateral recipients of neural auditory prostheses.

SUBMITTER: Laback B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2206619 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Binaural jitter improves interaural time-difference sensitivity of cochlear implantees at high pulse rates.

Laback Bernhard B Majdak Piotr P

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20080108 2

Interaural time difference (ITD) arises whenever a sound outside of the median plane arrives at the two ears. There is evidence that ITD in the rapidly varying fine structure of a sound is most important for sound localization and for understanding speech in noise. Cochlear implants (CIs), neural prosthetic devices that restore hearing in the profoundly deaf, are increasingly implanted to both ears to provide implantees with the advantages of binaural hearing. CI listeners have been shown to be ...[more]

PMID: 18182489

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Project description:ObjectivesIndividuals who use hearing aids (HAs) or cochlear implants (CIs) can experience broad binaural pitch fusion, such that sounds differing in pitch by as much as 3 to 4 octaves are perceptually integrated across ears. Previously, it was shown in HA users that the fused pitch is a weighted average of the two monaural pitches, ranging from equal weighting to dominance by the lower pitch. The goal of this study was to systematically measure the fused pitches in adult CI users, and determine whether CI users experience similar pitch averaging effects as observed in HA users.DesignTwelve adult CI users (Cochlear Ltd, Sydney, Australia) participated in this study: six bimodal CI users, who wear a CI with a contralateral HA, and six bilateral CI users. Stimuli to HA ears were acoustic pure tones, and stimuli to CI ears were biphasic pulse trains delivered to individual electrodes. Fusion ranges, the ranges of frequencies/electrodes in the comparison ear that were fused with a single electrode (electrode 22, 18, 12, or 6) in the reference ear, were measured using simultaneous, dichotic presentation of reference and comparison stimuli in opposite ears, and varying the comparison stimulus. Once the fusion ranges were measured, the fused binaural pitch of a reference-pair stimulus combination was measured by finding a pitch match to monaural comparison stimuli presented to the paired stimulus ear.ResultsFusion pitch weighting in CI users varied depending on the pitch difference of the reference-pair stimulus combination, with equal pitch averaging occurring for stimuli closer in pitch and lower pitch dominance occurring for stimuli farther apart in pitch. The averaging region was typically 0.5 to 2.3 octaves around the reference for bimodal CI users and 0.4 to 1.5 octaves for bilateral CI users. In some cases, a bias in the averaging region was observed toward the ear with greater stimulus variability.ConclusionsFusion pitch weighting effects in CI users were similar to those observed previously in HA users. However, CI users showed greater inter-subject variability in both pitch averaging ranges and bias effects. These findings suggest that binaural pitch averaging could be a common underlying mechanism in hearing-impaired listeners.

Project description:Electrical interaural time delay (ITD) discrimination was measured using 300-ms bursts applied to binaural pitch matched electrodes at basal, mid, and apical locations in each ear. Six bilateral implant users, who had previously shown good ITD sensitivity at a pulse rate of 100 pulses per second (pps), were assessed. Thresholds were measured as a function of pulse rate between 100 and 1,000 Hz, as well as modulation rate over that same range for high-rate pulse trains at 6,000 pps. Results were similar for all three places of stimulation and showed decreasing ITD sensitivity as either pulse rate or modulation rate increased, although the extent of that effect varied across subjects. The results support a model comprising a common ITD mechanism for high- and low-frequency places of stimulation, which, for electrical stimulation, is rate-limited in the same way across electrodes because peripheral temporal responses are largely place invariant. Overall, ITD sensitivity was somewhat better with unmodulated pulse trains than with high-rate pulse trains modulated at matched rates, although comparisons at individual rates showed that difference to be significant only at 300 Hz. Electrodes presenting with the lowest thresholds at 600 Hz were further assessed using bursts with a ramped onset of 10 ms. The slower rise time resulted in decreased performance in four of the listeners, but not in the two best performers, indicating that those two could use ongoing cues at 600 Hz. Performance at each place was also measured using single-pulse stimuli. Comparison of those data with the unmodulated 300-ms burst thresholds showed that on average, the addition of ongoing cues beyond the onset enhanced overall ITD sensitivity at 100 and 300 Hz, but not at 600 Hz. At 1,000 Hz, the added ongoing cues actually decreased performance. That result is attributed to the introduction of ambiguous cues within the physiologically relevant range and increased dichotic firing.

Dataset Information

Binaural jitter improves interaural time-difference sensitivity of cochlear implantees at high pulse rates.

Publications

Binaural jitter improves interaural time-difference sensitivity of cochlear implantees at high pulse rates.

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