Abstract
Individuals with single-sided deafness (SSD) who receive a cochlear implant (CI) realize some benefit for localization and speech perception in noise. Previous studies of SSD-CIs examined simple conditions involving speech perception in the presence of a single noise masker or single-source localization. However, some of the most important benefits of two ears arise in multisource situations where binaural cues and head turning can facilitate the perceptual separation of spatial separated sources. Eight SSD-CI listeners performed a sound-localization task in a multisource environment pre-implantation and at least 3 months post-implantation. Environmental sounds were presented from a spherical loudspeaker array. The target sound was presented alone, or concurrently with one or three additional sources. The target was cued by being added to or removed from the mixture after a 6-s delay. A head-mounted tracker monitored head movements during the task. The CI substantially improved localization accuracy, reducing the mean azimuthal error by as much as 34%, while reducing the amount of head turning by as much as 44%, even during periods when the target sound was not present. For SSD-CI listeners, bilateral auditory input can improve environmental-sound localization in a complex mixture, while reducing the amount of head-turning effort required. [The opinions and assertions presented are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as necessarily reflecting the views of the Department of Defense.]
Published Version
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