Abstract
The perception of timbre is fairly well understood for normal-hearing listeners; however, it is still unclear how hearing impairment affects this percept. This chapter addresses how people with severe hearing loss who have been fitted with a cochlear implant perceive timbre. A cochlear implant is a medical device that allows a deaf person to perceive sounds by stimulating their auditory nerve directly. Unlike a pair of glasses that perfectly restores sight, cochlear implants dramatically alter the audio signal. This chapter starts with a brief overview of the design and functioning of a cochlear implant, which is then followed by a discussion of how cochlear implant listeners perceive and identify musical instruments. Thereafter, insights on how cochlear implant listeners perceive the sound quality induced by simple electrical pulse trains will be provided. Finally, the chapter proposes some potential avenues to improve the sound quality experienced through a cochlear implant.
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Notes
- 1.
It is worth noting that in CI studies, the number of subjects is often very small as it is quite challenging to find suitable participants.
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Jeremy Marozeau declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Wiebke Lamping declares that she has no conflict of interest.
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Marozeau, J., Lamping, W. (2019). Timbre Perception with Cochlear Implants. In: Siedenburg, K., Saitis, C., McAdams, S., Popper, A., Fay, R. (eds) Timbre: Acoustics, Perception, and Cognition. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 69. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14832-4_10
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