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The present study used concurrent-vowel recognition to measure integration efficiency of combined acoustic and electric stimulation in eight actual cochlear-implant subjects who had normal or residual low-frequency acoustic hearing contralaterally. Although these subjects could recognize single vowels (>90% correct) with either electric or combined stimulation, their performance degraded significantly in concurrent-vowel recognition. Compared with previous simulation results using normal-hearing subjects, the present subjects produced similar performance with acoustic or electric stimulation alone, but significantly lower performance with combined stimulation. A probabilistic model found reduced integration efficiency between acoustic and electric stimulation in the present subjects. The integration efficiency was negatively correlated with residual acoustic hearing in the non-implanted ear and duration of deafness in the implanted ear. The present result suggests a central origin of the integration deficit and that this integration be evaluated and considered in future management of hearing impairment and design of auditory prostheses.
Yang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.