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. 2015 Nov-Dec;36(6):733-7.
doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000189.

Short-Term and Working Memory Impairments in Early-Implanted, Long-Term Cochlear Implant Users Are Independent of Audibility and Speech Production

Angela M AuBuchon  1 , David B Pisoni, William G Kronenberger
Affiliations

Short-Term and Working Memory Impairments in Early-Implanted, Long-Term Cochlear Implant Users Are Independent of Audibility and Speech Production

Angela M AuBuchon et al. Ear Hear. 2015 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether early-implanted, long-term cochlear implant (CI) users display delays in verbal short-term and working memory capacity when processes related to audibility and speech production are eliminated.

Design: Twenty-three long-term CI users and 23 normal-hearing controls each completed forward and backward digit span tasks under testing conditions that differed in presentation modality (auditory or visual) and response output (spoken recall or manual pointing).

Results: Normal-hearing controls reproduced more lists of digits than the CI users, even when the test items were presented visually and the responses were made manually via touchscreen response.

Conclusions: Short-term and working memory delays observed in CI users are not due to greater demands from peripheral sensory processes such as audibility or from overt speech-motor planning and response output organization. Instead, CI users are less efficient at encoding and maintaining phonological representations in verbal short-term memory using phonological and linguistic strategies during memory tasks.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Means and Standard Error for (a) Forward and (b) Backward Digit Span tasks. VDS-F = Visual Digit Span –Forward; ADS-F = Auditory Digit Span – Forward; CDS-F = Computerized Digit Span – Forward; ADS-B = Auditory Digit Span – Backward; and CDS-B = Computerized Digit Span – Backward
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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