The perception of auditory continuity by cochlear implant listeners – April 16, 2018

The perception of auditory continuity by cochlear implant (CI) users was investigated by testing two groups of listeners (10 CI users, and 10 control listeners with normal-hearing). The participants took part in two tasks in which they heard a pure tone and a narrow-band noise (masker) centred at the frequency of the pure tone: a yes-no task (perceived continuity judgments), and a 2AFC task (masking task). CI listeners reported stronger perceived continuity and masking at a specific masker level, suggesting that susceptibility to masking plays an important role in poor speech-in-noise performance by listeners with cochlear implants.