Cognitive factors and cochlear implants: Some thoughts on perception, learning, and memory in speech perception

Over the past few years, there has been increased interest in studying some of the cognitive factors that affect speech perception performance of coch lear implant patients. In this paper, I provide a brief theoretical overvie w of the fundamental assumptions of the information-processing approach to cognition and discuss the role of perception, learning, and memory in speec h perception and spoken language processing. The information-processing fra mework provides researchers and clinicians with a new way to understand the time-course of perceptual and cognitive development and the relations betw een perception and production of spoken language. Directions for future res earch using this approach are discussed including the study of individual d ifferences, predicting success with a cochlear implant from a set of cognit ive measures of performance and developing new intervention strategies.