The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.

BACKGROUND: Enjoyment of music is an important part of life that may be degraded for people with hearing impairments, especially those using cochlear implants. The ability to follow separate lines of melody is an important factor in music appreciation. This ability relies on effective auditory strea...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hamish Innes-Brown, Jeremy Marozeau, Peter Blamey
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3240656?pdf=render
id doaj-2665dfe351624c0c93e3948ad9ebc31c
record_format Article
spelling doaj-2665dfe351624c0c93e3948ad9ebc31c2020-11-25T01:15:00ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032011-01-01612e2932710.1371/journal.pone.0029327The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.Hamish Innes-BrownJeremy MarozeauPeter BlameyBACKGROUND: Enjoyment of music is an important part of life that may be degraded for people with hearing impairments, especially those using cochlear implants. The ability to follow separate lines of melody is an important factor in music appreciation. This ability relies on effective auditory streaming, which is much reduced in people with hearing impairment, contributing to difficulties in music appreciation. The aim of this study was to assess whether visual cues could reduce the subjective difficulty of segregating a melody from interleaved background notes in normally hearing listeners, those using hearing aids, and those using cochlear implants. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Normally hearing listeners (N = 20), hearing aid users (N = 10), and cochlear implant users (N = 11) were asked to rate the difficulty of segregating a repeating four-note melody from random interleaved distracter notes. The pitch of the background notes was gradually increased or decreased throughout blocks, providing a range of difficulty from easy (with a large pitch separation between melody and distracter) to impossible (with the melody and distracter completely overlapping). Visual cues were provided on half the blocks, and difficulty ratings for blocks with and without visual cues were compared between groups. Visual cues reduced the subjective difficulty of extracting the melody from the distracter notes for normally hearing listeners and cochlear implant users, but not hearing aid users. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Simple visual cues may improve the ability of cochlear implant users to segregate lines of music, thus potentially increasing their enjoyment of music. More research is needed to determine what type of acoustic cues to encode visually in order to optimise the benefits they may provide.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3240656?pdf=render
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Hamish Innes-Brown
Jeremy Marozeau
Peter Blamey
spellingShingle Hamish Innes-Brown
Jeremy Marozeau
Peter Blamey
The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Hamish Innes-Brown
Jeremy Marozeau
Peter Blamey
author_sort Hamish Innes-Brown
title The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
title_short The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
title_full The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
title_fullStr The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
title_full_unstemmed The effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
title_sort effect of visual cues on difficulty ratings for segregation of musical streams in listeners with impaired hearing.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2011-01-01
description BACKGROUND: Enjoyment of music is an important part of life that may be degraded for people with hearing impairments, especially those using cochlear implants. The ability to follow separate lines of melody is an important factor in music appreciation. This ability relies on effective auditory streaming, which is much reduced in people with hearing impairment, contributing to difficulties in music appreciation. The aim of this study was to assess whether visual cues could reduce the subjective difficulty of segregating a melody from interleaved background notes in normally hearing listeners, those using hearing aids, and those using cochlear implants. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Normally hearing listeners (N = 20), hearing aid users (N = 10), and cochlear implant users (N = 11) were asked to rate the difficulty of segregating a repeating four-note melody from random interleaved distracter notes. The pitch of the background notes was gradually increased or decreased throughout blocks, providing a range of difficulty from easy (with a large pitch separation between melody and distracter) to impossible (with the melody and distracter completely overlapping). Visual cues were provided on half the blocks, and difficulty ratings for blocks with and without visual cues were compared between groups. Visual cues reduced the subjective difficulty of extracting the melody from the distracter notes for normally hearing listeners and cochlear implant users, but not hearing aid users. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Simple visual cues may improve the ability of cochlear implant users to segregate lines of music, thus potentially increasing their enjoyment of music. More research is needed to determine what type of acoustic cues to encode visually in order to optimise the benefits they may provide.
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3240656?pdf=render
work_keys_str_mv AT hamishinnesbrown theeffectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
AT jeremymarozeau theeffectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
AT peterblamey theeffectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
AT hamishinnesbrown effectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
AT jeremymarozeau effectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
AT peterblamey effectofvisualcuesondifficultyratingsforsegregationofmusicalstreamsinlistenerswithimpairedhearing
_version_ 1725154968756813824