Music Perception in Adult Users of Cochlear Implants: A Brief Review

Although cochlear implants (CIs) can provide good speech understanding in quiet, in general, users of CIs have shown poor music perception performance, particularly with regard to pitch (and hence melody). This is primarily due to the limited ability of CI processing strategies and electric stimulation to provide place pitch and fine structure information from the original input signal to the auditory nervous system of the user. Approaches such as current focusing, current steering, enhanced amplitude modulation cues, and optic stimulation have been shown or theorized to assist in music perception, as have musical training programs. This article is a brief review of research related to music perception in adults with CIs, specifically their rhythm, pitch, and melody perception performance; processing strategies that have been or are being developed which might improve their music perception performance; and music training programs that have been shown to improve their music perception performance.