A mixed-rate strategy on a bilaterally-synchronized cochlear implant processor offering the opportunity to provide both speech understanding and interaural time difference cues

Stephen R. Dennison, Tanvi Thakkar, Alan Kan, Mario A. Svirsky, Mahan Azadpour, Ruth Y. Litovsky*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Background/Objective: Bilaterally implanted cochlear implant (CI) users do not consistently have access to interaural time differences (ITDs). ITDs are crucial for restoring the ability to localize sounds and understand speech in noisy environments. Lack of access to ITDs is partly due to lack of communication between clinical processors across the ears and partly because processors must use relatively high rates of stimulation to encode envelope information. Speech understanding is best at higher stimulation rates, but sensitivity to ITDs in the timing of pulses is best at low stimulation rates. Methods: We implemented a practical “mixed rate” strategy that encodes ITD information using a low stimulation rate on some channels and speech information using high rates on the remaining channels. The strategy was tested using a bilaterally synchronized research processor, the CCi-MOBILE. Nine bilaterally implanted CI users were tested on speech understanding and were asked to judge the location of a sound based on ITDs encoded using this strategy. Results: Performance was similar in both tasks between the control strategy and the new strategy. Conclusions: We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the sound coding strategy and provide guidelines for utilizing synchronized processors for developing strategies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1917
Pages (from-to)1-17
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Clinical Medicine
Volume13
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2024. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • cochlear implants
  • research processor
  • binaural hearing
  • synchronization

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