Workshop on the Auditory Basis of Speech Perception Keele University, UK July 15-19, 1996

Speech Processing for Cochlear Implants: The Implementation and Evaluation of Phase-Locking in High Rate Coding Strategies

L. Geurts (1), G. Govaerts (2), S. Peeters (3), L. Van Immerseel (3), Astrid van Wieringen (1), Johan Wouters (1)

(1) Lab. Exp. ORL, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
(2) Lab. Aud Perc. and Speech Comm., Dept. Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
(3) Lab. Medical Electronics, University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

Three speech processing schemes for cochlear implants are tested in the present study, one based on the standard continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) strategy, and two designed at incorporating information delivered by the temporal discharge pattern of populations of auditory nerve fibers. Such phase-locking strategies may improve transmission of periodicity and voicing cues in speech recognition. The perceptual importance of temporal information was further examined by changing the time constant in the CIS strategy. Performance of pre- and postlingual LAURA-users was evaluated by means of identification experiments. The vowel and consonant confusion data are analyzed in terms of information transmission scores and multidimensional analyses. First experiments demonstrate the importance of incorporating temporal properties of the speech signal in order to improve speech recognition.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Geurts, L. / Govaerts, G. / Peeters, S. / Immerseel, L. Van / Wieringen, Astrid van / Wouters, Johan (1996): "Speech processing for cochlear implants: the implementation and evaluation of phase-locking in high rate coding strategies", In ABSP-1996, 265-268.