Impact of Auditory-Motor Musical Training on Melodic Pattern Recognition in Cochlear Implant Users. Issue 4 (April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chari, Divya A.; Barrett, Karen C.; Patel, Aniruddh D.; Colgrove, Thomas R.; Jiradejvong, Patpong; Jacobs, Lauren Y.; Limb, Charles J.
• Is Part Of: Otology & neurotology. Volume 41:Issue 4(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-04
• Subjects: Auditory-motor training -- Cochlear implants -- Music -- Music training -- Pitch-based speech prosody -- Vocal emotion; Otology -- Periodicals; Ear -- Diseases -- Periodicals; Skull base -- Surgery -- Periodicals; 617.8005
• DOI: 10.1097/MAO.0000000000002525
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1531-7129

Abstract

Abstract : Objective: Cochlear implant (CI) users struggle with tasks of pitch-based prosody perception. Pitch pattern recognition is vital for both music comprehension and understanding the prosody of speech, which signals emotion and intent. Research in normal-hearing individuals shows that auditory-motor training, in which participants produce the auditory pattern they are learning, is more effective than passive auditory training. We investigated whether auditory-motor training of CI users improves complex sound perception, such as vocal emotion recognition and pitch pattern recognition, compared with purely auditory training. Study Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Tertiary academic center. Patients: Fifteen postlingually deafened adults with CIs. Intervention(s): Participants were divided into 3 one-month training groups: auditory-motor (intervention), auditory-only (active control), and no training (control). Auditory-motor training was conducted with the "Contours" software program and auditory-only training was completed with the "AngelSound" software program. Main Outcome Measure: Pre and posttest examinations included tests of speech perception (consonant–nucleus–consonant, hearing-in-noise test sentence recognition), speech prosody perception, pitch discrimination, and melodic contour identification. Results: Participants in the auditory-motor training group performed better than those in the auditory-only and no-training ( p < 0.05) for the melodic contour identification task. No significant training effect was noted on tasks of speech perception, speech prosody perception, or pitch discrimination. Conclusions: These data suggest that short-term auditory-motor music training of CI users impacts pitch pattern recognition. This study offers approaches for enriching the world of complex sound in the CI user.