Melodic Pitch Perception and Lexical Tone Perception in Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of pitch cues in Mandarin, the present CI participants had great difficulty perceiving melodic pitch. The availability of amplitude and duration cues in lexical tones most likely compensated for the poor pitch perception observed with these CI listeners. Previous acoustic hearing experience seemed to benefit postlingual CI users' melodic pitch perception. Longer CI experience was associated with better MCI performance for both subject groups, suggesting that CI users' music perception may improve as they gain experience with their device.