人工内耳装用者における人識別に関する一考察

Abstract

The ability to identify speakers was investigated in two patients with cochlear implants. The short sentence perception test with video system was performed. On the video system the real speakers were not always identical to the visual ones. The patients were asked to select the sentence and the speaker after watching the VTR. In case 1, the rate of correct identification of the speaker was 43.0-53.9% and the gender of the speaker was correctly selected in 84.4-85.9%. Case 2 could identify the speaker in 39.1-40.6% and the gender of the speaker in 63.3-75.0%. These correct responses were above the chance level and were hardly affected by either visual speakers or prosody of the real speakers. These results indicated that patients with cochlear implants could identify the gender of a speaker, but could not identify the speaker. Case 1 could use the telephone better once she could identify the speaker. This suggests that her ability to communicate with a person on the telephone is enhanced by identifying the person speaking.