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. 2017 Aug 16;60(8):2360-2363.
doi: 10.1044/2017_JSLHR-H-16-0312.

Speech Understanding in Noise by Patients With Cochlear Implants Using a Monaural Adaptive Beamformer

Michael F Dorman  1 , Sarah Natale  1 , Anthony Spahr  1 , Erin Castioni  2
Affiliations

Speech Understanding in Noise by Patients With Cochlear Implants Using a Monaural Adaptive Beamformer

Michael F Dorman et al. J Speech Lang Hear Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this experiment was to compare, for patients with cochlear implants (CIs), the improvement for speech understanding in noise provided by a monaural adaptive beamformer and for two interventions that produced bilateral input (i.e., bilateral CIs and hearing preservation [HP] surgery).

Method: Speech understanding scores for sentences were obtained for 10 listeners fit with a single CI. The listeners were tested with and without beamformer activated in a "cocktail party" environment with spatially separated target and maskers. Data for 10 listeners with bilateral CIs and 8 listeners with HP CIs were taken from Loiselle, Dorman, Yost, Cook, and Gifford (2016), who used the same test protocol.

Results: The use of the beamformer resulted in a 31 percentage point improvement in performance; in bilateral CIs, an 18 percentage point improvement; and in HP CIs, a 20 percentage point improvement.

Conclusion: A monaural adaptive beamformer can produce an improvement in speech understanding in a complex noise environment that is equal to, or greater than, the improvement produced by bilateral CIs and HP surgery.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Percent correct sentence scores as a function of condition. Each filled circle indicates the performance of a single listener. Omni = omnidirectional microphone; Beam = adaptive beamformer. The error bars indicate ± 1 SE.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
(Top) Percent correct scores as a function of condition.(Bottom) Difference scores from conditions shown at top of figure. Plotting conventions are the same as in Figure 1. Omni = omnidirectional microphone; Beam = adaptive beamformer; Acontra = low-frequency acoustic hearing in the ear opposite the implant; Abilat = low-frequency acoustic hearing in both ears due to hearing preservation (HP) surgery in the cochlear implant (CI) ear.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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