Pitch perception in impaired listeners

Abstract

The study of pitch perception in hearing‐impaired listeners is of interest primarily because of the hope that measurements of deficits in pitch perception in listeners with particular types of impairments, in conjunction with other psychoacoustic and physiologic measurements of these same impairments, will lead to insights into the process by which pitch information is encoded in the normal system. This paper reviews studies of frequency discrimination, and pure‐ and complex‐tone pitch perception, in impaired listeners. Among the impairment‐related phenomena which will be discussed are: (1) the degradation of frequency discrimination and increase in pitch‐matching variability; (2) the exaggeration of various pitch‐shift phenomena such as pitch‐level effects, diplacusis, musical paracusis, and post‐stimulatory pitch shifts; and (3) the degradation of complex tone pitch perception. In addition, other anomalous pitch‐related phenomena, which may or may not be considered impairment related, such as tonal tinnitus, tonal monaural diplacusis, and polyacusis, will be reviewed. Finally, the perception of pitch‐like sensations by cochlear implantees will be examined.