The perception of vocal characteristics in normal-hearing and cochlear-implanted children
Deniz Başkent, Jacqueline Libert, Deborah Vickers, Étienne Gaudrain · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2015
Voice characteristics provide important cues for many speech-related tasks, such as gender categorization, vocal emotion perception, and understanding speech in the presence of competing voices; tasks known to be difficult for cochlear implant (CI) users. While most related research has focused on voice fundamental frequency (F0), the work from Smith et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am., vol. 117, pp. 305–318, 2005] has shown the importance of another voice characteristic: the vocal tract length (VTL; related to speaker size). Recent work has indicated that while CI users have difficulty in utilizing F0, they are even more limited at VTL perception. This study aimed to further understand factors potentially contributing to this limitation, by exploring F0 and VTL perception in NH children and children with CIs. We hypothesized that children may learn to utilize F0 before VTL cues because of exposure to exaggerated F0 cues in infant-directed-speech, and acquisition of VTL cues may be later, due to the necessity for exposure to multiple talkers; implying a hierarchy in processing the two vocal cues. We further hypothesized that children with CIs may be better at processing voice cues than adult-implanted CI users, suggesting that these perceptual cues could be learned.