The relation between electrophysiologic channel interaction and electrode pitch ranking in cochlear implant recipients

Abstract

The primary goal of this study was to examine the relation between electrophysiologic measures of channel interaction and the ability to discriminate pitch between electrodes in a psychophysical pitch-ranking task. It was hypothesized that cochlear implant recipients should perform better on an electrode pitch-ranking task when using electrodes with less channel interaction as measured with the electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP). The width of the ECAP channel interaction function was compared with the slope of the pitch-ranking function for 10 adult Nucleus 24 recipients. Results showed no significant correlation between electrode pitch-ranking ability and width of the ECAP channel interaction function for individual subjects or for group data. Additionally, there was no significant correlation between speech perception performance and either pitch-ranking ability or width of the ECAP channel interaction function. These results suggest that the width of the ECAP interaction function may not be an accurate predictor of the ability to discriminate between electrodes on the basis of pitch.