Abstract
For the perception of timbre of a musical instrument, the attack time is known to hold crucial information. The first 50 to 150 ms of sound onset reflect the excitation mechanism, which generates the sound. Since auditory processing and music perception in particular are known to be hampered in cochlear implant (CI) users, we conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study with an oddball paradigm to evaluate the processing of small differences in musical sound onset. The first 60 ms of a cornet sound were manipulated in order to examine whether these differences are detected by CI users and normal-hearing controls (NH controls), as revealed by auditory evoked potentials (AEPs). Our analysis focused on the N1 as an exogenous component known to reflect physical stimuli properties as well as on the P2 and the Mismatch Negativity (MMN). Our results revealed different N1 latencies as well as P2 amplitudes and latencies for the onset manipulations in both groups. An MMN could be elicited only in the NH control group. Together with additional findings that suggest an impact of musical training on CI users’ AEPs, our findings support the view that impaired timbre perception in CI users is at partly due to altered sound onset feature detection.
Highlights
A cochlear implant (CI) can restore hearing in humans with severe and profound sensori-neural hearing loss
Since the CI was mainly created as a prosthesis to enhance speech perception, music perception remains in comparison poor [1,2], with outcomes depending on the complexity of the musical stimuli
Group specific differences were tested with post hoc t-test and showed significantly better performance for NH controls for the deviant with shortened attack when presented on second or third position (2nd position: t = 23.85, p = .001, 3rd position: t = 22.94, p = .008) and the deviant with the prolonged attack presented on 3rd position(t = 24.96, p,.001)
Summary
A cochlear implant (CI) can restore hearing in humans with severe and profound sensori-neural hearing loss. A sound’s timbre is depending on the spectral and temporal envelope, it is developing and its perception is crucial for musical appraisal and practical tasks such as instrument identification. While most studies have investigated the spectral cues needed for a sufficient timbre and music perception [9,10] only a few focused on the temporal envelope of sound [11,12]. Kong and colleagues used a multi dimensional scaling paradigm in which participants had to rate similarities between instruments. Their findings suggested that CI users made their judgements according to the temporal envelope cues of sounds, and relied on attack time information [13]. Heng and colleagues corroborated these finding using auditory chimeras built from one instruments spectral and another instruments temporal envelope and found that CI users tend to judge the instrument mainly in regard to the temporal envelope information [12]
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