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Improved coding and transduction of pitch, fine spatio-temporal structure and speech in noise for cochlear implant users
Background
Over the past thirty years, advances in cochlear implant technology have resulted in steady improvements in hearing for people with severe to profound deafness. Current cochlear implant users mostly obtain satisfactory speech understanding, at least in favourable listening conditions. However, less progress has occurred to improve perception of voice pitch and music, and speech understanding in background noise is generally far from adequate.
These poorer outcomes for cochlear implant users are thought to be related to limitations in coding of spectral (frequency) and temporal (timing) information in the sound provided by present systems.
Detail
The aim of this project is to investigate novel ways in which pitch and spatio-temporal information can be better coded in cochlear implant systems. The main questions to be addressed in this project are:
1. can modulation rate coding of temporal envelope information (useful for perception of pitch and speech perception in noise) be improved upon? or can it be made more salient compared to place coding?
2. can improved coding and transduction of fine spatio-temporal information in cochlear implant users be obtained by better control of the timing and spatial extent of neural response patterns in the auditory system? If so we would expect to see benefits in coding of pitch information, recognition of speech in noise, quality/naturalness of sound, and localisation.
These questions will be examined in several sub-projects with existing cochlear implant users utilising psychophysical, speech, and music perception measures and with computational and animal models of the auditory system.
![[title]](http://www.hearingcrc.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/profile_260/content/people/profile-vandali.jpg "Mr Andrew Vandali")
