Bimodal cochlear implant listeners’ ability to perceive minimal audible angle differences

摘要

Background:Bilateral inputs should ideally improve sound localization and speech understanding in noise. However, for many bimodal listeners [i.e., individuals using a cochlear implant (CI) with a contralateral hearing aid (HA)], such bilateral benefits are at best, inconsistent. The degree to which clinically-available HA and CI devices can function together to preserve interaural time and level differences (ITDs and ILDs, respectively) enough to support the localization of sound sources is a question with important ramifications for speech understanding in complex acoustic environments.