Pitch discrimination and melody recognition by cochlear implant users

Abstract

This study investigated the pitch discrimination and melody recognition abilities of cochlear implant (CI) users. Fifteen postlingually deafened users of the Nucleus cochlear implant were recruited for the study, along with nine normally hearing subjects. Two tests were conducted: (i) pitch ranking (utilising 1, 0.5, and 0.25 octave intervals), and (ii) melody recognition. Results indicated that cochlear implant subjects scored significantly lower than those with normal hearing on all tests ( p<0.001). Implantees' performance on the 0.25 octave pitch test was at chance level, with no significant difference between scores for the 0.5 and 1 octave interval. Moderate correlations were found between the implantees' scores on the latter two tests, and the melody recognition test ( r=0.623 and r=0.507 for the 1 and 0.5 octave intervals, respectively). This indicates that subjects' ability to rank pitches was associated with their ability to recognise melodies.