PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND SPEECH-PERCEPTION STUDIES - A CASE-REPORT ON A BINAURAL COCHLEAR IMPLANT SUBJECT

Further improvements in speech perception for cochlear implant patient s in quiet and in noise should be possible with speech processing stra tegies using binaural implants. For this reason, presented here is a s eries of initial psychophysical and speech perception studies on the a uthors' first binaural cochlear implant patient. For an approximate ma tching of the places of stimulation on the two sides, the patient usua lly reported a single percept when the two sides were simultaneously s timulated. Lateralization was strongly influenced by amplitude differe nces between the electrical stimuli on the two sides, but only weakly by interaural time delays. Speech testing, comparing monaural with bin aural electrical stimulation, showed a binaural advantage particularly in noise.