Abstract

ABSTRACT Cochlear implant (CI) successfully restores speech communication in profoundly deaf people. Speech perception by CI users can reach as high as ~100% in quiet condition. However, CI users perform poorly in pitch related tasks such as music perception. Studies have shown that the lack of explicit coding of low frequency information (< 500 Hz) by CI processors contributes to the impaired pitch perception. It remains unknown how the speech production relates to the impaired pitch perception in CI users. In this study, we tested the perception and vocal production of lowfrequency musical notes in 14 CI children. In the perception task, subjects were asked to discriminate whether a pair of musical notes were the same or different. In the vocal production task, subjects were asked to vocalize the musical tones after listening to the same notes vocalized by a female speaker. Objective and subjective evaluations of each subject's vocal production were carried out. Correct response of note discrimination, pitch contour perception, and extracted F0 frequency range of sound samples were analyzed. OUR results show that CI Children can discriminate musical notes when there were two or more semitones between the notes. However, all CI users showed a significant loss in the production of the musical notes. F0 of subjects' vocal production of music notes was significantly lower than that of the original sounds they heard. Overall, the subjective evaluation of subjects' vocal production of musical notes showed a poor pitch contour recognition. Findings from the present study showed that the vocal production of low-frequency notes by CI users does not reflect the accuracy of their perception, suggesting that the distorted auditory feedback provided by CI disrupted their vocal production.