A "multidimensional phoneme identification" (MPI) model is proposed to account for vowel perception by cochlear implant users. A multidimensional extension of the Durlach-Braida model of intensity perception, this model incorporates an internal noise model and a decision model to account separately for errors due to poor sensitivity and response bias. The MPI model provides a complete quantitative description of how listeners encode and combine acoustic cues, and how they use this information to determine which sound they heard. Thus, it allows for testing specific hypotheses about phoneme identification in a very stringent fashion. As an example of the model's application, vowel identification matrices obtained with synthetic speech stimuli (including "conflicting cue" conditions [Dorman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 3428-3432 (1992)] were examined. The listeners were users of the "compressed-analog" stimulation strategy, which filters the speech spectrum into four partly overlapping frequency bands and delivers each signal to one of four electrodes in the cochlea. It was found that a simple model incorporating one temporal cue (i.e., an acoustic cue based only on the time waveforms delivered to the most basal channel) and spectral cues (based on the distribution of amplitudes among channels) can be quite successful in explaining listener responses. The new approach represented by the MPI model may be used to obtain useful insights about speech perception by cochlear implant users in particular, and by all kinds of listeners in general.
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