Listening effort in prelingual cochlear implant recipients: Effects of spectral and temporal auditory processing and contralateral acoustic hearing

Abstract

© 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.Objective Considering the impact of listening effort (LE) on auditory perception, attention, and memory, it is a significant aspect in the daily hearing experiences of cochlear implant (CI) recipients. Reduced spectral and temporal information on an acoustic signal can make listening more difficult; as a result, it is important to understand the relationship between LE and spectral and temporal auditory processing capacities in CI receivers. Study Design, Setting, and Patients This study used spectral ripple discrimination and temporal modulation transfer function to evaluate 20 prelingually deafened and early implanted CI recipients. The speech perception in noise test (primary) and the digit recall task (DRT-secondary) were used to assess LE using the dual-task paradigm. To assess the effects of acoustic hearing, contralateral acoustic hearing thresholds between 125 Hz and 8 kHz with a hearing aid were also acquired. To examine the relationship between the research variables, correlation coefficients were generated. Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare unilateral and bimodal users. Results There was a statistically significant correlation between LE and spectral ripple discrimination (r = 0.56; p = 0.011), 125 Hz (r = 0.51; p = 0.020), 250 Hz (r = 0.48; p = 0.030), 500 Hz (r = 0.45; p = 0.045), 1,000 Hz (r = 0.51; p = 0.023), 2000 Hz (r = 0.48; p = 0.031), and 4,000 Hz (r = 0.48; p = 0.031), whereas no statistically significant correlations were observed between temporal modulation transfer function in four frequencies and LE. There was no statistically significant difference between unilateral and bimodal CI recipients (p > 0.05). Conclusion As a result of the improved signal-to-noise ratio in the auditory environment, CI users with better spectral resolutions and acoustic hearing have a reduced LE. On the other hand, temporal auditory processing, as measured by temporal modulation detection, does not contribute to the LE.