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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-75). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (M.M.) Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Kimberly Van Wheelden, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 6-29-07). Document formatted into pages; contains 44 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

Existing music questionnaires have shown that postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant (CI) users generally find music to be less enjoyable following implantation. However, they did not investigate, in detail, which factors influence CI users’ music listening enjoyment, nor did they examine the approach a music training program should take. In order to obtain such information, a questionnaire, the University of Canterbury Music Listening Questionnaire (UCMLQ), was developed. The UCMLQ investigated: (i) the effect of implantation on CI users’ music listening enjoyment (determined by comparing the levels of enjoyment experienced post-implantation to prehearing loss, and just before implantation); (ii) the effect of a hearing aid in the unimplanted ear on CI users’ music perception and appreciation; (iii) the effect of timbre on music listening enjoyment whereby respondents will be asked to rate the pleasantness and naturalness of common instruments and voices, and also, give ratings on the instruments’ sound quality based on what they expect these instruments to sound to a person with normal hearing; (iv) whether respondents have a preference for a particular musical style (e.g. Country and Western, Jazz, Classical, etc); (v) whether respondents’ have a preference for, firstly, low-pitched versus high-pitched instruments/voices; secondly, music with instruments-only, voice-only, or both instruments and voice; and lastly, music with smaller number of performers versus greater number of performers; (vi) practical methods or ‘tips’ for enhancing everyday music listening enjoyment were collated; and finally, (vii) respondents were asked for their views and opinions on the content and logistics of a ‘take-home’ MTP for improving their music listening enjoyment. One-hundred postlingually deafened adult CI users, ranging in age from 18 to 88 years (mean = 62.1, SD = 17.1), completed the UCMLQ. All respondents used a Nucleus CI24 implant and the ACE speech processing strategy. Results showed that following implantation, respondents generally found music to be less enjoyable but they also preferred certain types of instruments and music: (i) low-frequency instruments over high-frequency instruments; (ii) certain instruments (e.g. the guitar) over others (e.g. brass instruments); (iii) smaller numbers of performers as opposed to larger numbers; (iv) Country and Western music as opposed to Pop/Rock, Jazz, Classical-small group, and Classical-orchestra; and (v) music with a slow rhythm/beat, and words. A comparison of the ratings given by CI and Hearing Aid (CI+HA) users and CI-only users also revealed that CI+HA users felt that they were significantly more able to follow the melody-line of musical styles, identify these styles, and they also rated musical styles to sound significantly ‘more normal’ than the CI-only users did. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups’ (CI+HA users versus CI-only users) ratings for common instrumental sounds. In regards to respondents’ interest in partaking in a ‘take-home’ music training program (MTP), 54% of respondents stated that they would be interested in undertaking one. Respondents also indicated that the MTP should focus on improving their ability to recognise tunes, in particular, tunes known before implantation, and commonly-known tunes, and the MTP should offer a wide range of musical styles. In addition, training sessions should be of 30- minutes duration, 2 times per week, and the MTP should come in the form of a DVD with subtitles. Overall, this study collected information which not only helps us to better understand CI users’ appreciation of music but also could be used in the shaping and development of a future MTP.

Cochlear implant (CI) users have traditionally reported less enjoyment and have performed more poorly on tasks of music perception (timbre, melody and pitch) than their normal hearing (NH) counterparts. The enjoyment and perception of music can be affected by the MAP programmed into a user’s speech processor, the parameters of which can be altered to change the way that a CI recipient hears sound. However, finding the optimal MAP can prove challenging to clinicians because altering one parameter will affect others. Until recently the only way to find the optimal MAP has theoretically been to present each potential combination of parameters systematically, however this is impractical in a clinical setting due to the thousands of different potential combinations. Thus, in general, clinicians can find a good MAP, but not necessarily the best one. The goal of this study was to assess whether a Genetic Algorithm would assist clinicians to create a better MAP for music listening than current methods. Seven adult Nucleus Freedom CI users were assessed on tasks of timbre identification, melody identification and pitch-ranking using their original MAP. The participants then used the GA software to create an individualised MAP for music listening (referred to as their “GA MAP”). They then spent four weeks comparing their GA and original MAPs in their everyday life, and recording their listening experiences in a listening diary. At the end of this period participants were assessed on the same timbre, melody, and pitch tasks using their GA MAP. The results of the study showed that the GA process took an average of 35 minutes (range: 13-72 minutes) to create a MAP for music listening. As a group, participants reported the GA MAP to be slightly better than their original MAP for music listening, and preferred the GA MAP when at the cinema. Participants, on average, also performed significantly better on the melody identification task with their GA MAP; however they were significantly better on the half-octave interval pitch ranking task with their original MAP. The results also showed that participants were significantly more accurate on the single-instrument identification task than the ensemble instrument identification task regardless of which MAP they used. Overall, the results show that a GA can be used to successfully create a MAP for music listening, with two participants creating a MAP that they decided to keep at the conclusion of the study.

Existing music questionnaires have shown that postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant (CI) users generally find music to be less enjoyable following implantation. However, they did not investigate, in detail, which factors influence CI users’ music listening enjoyment, nor did they examine the approach a music training program should take. In order to obtain such information, a questionnaire, the University of Canterbury Music Listening Questionnaire (UCMLQ), was developed. The UCMLQ investigated: (i) the effect of implantation on CI users’ music listening enjoyment (determined by comparing the levels of enjoyment experienced post-implantation to prehearing loss, and just before implantation); (ii) the effect of a hearing aid in the unimplanted ear on CI users’ music perception and appreciation; (iii) the effect of timbre on music listening enjoyment whereby respondents will be asked to rate the pleasantness and naturalness of common instruments and voices, and also, give ratings on the instruments’ sound quality based on what they expect these instruments to sound to a person with normal hearing; (iv) whether respondents have a preference for a particular musical style (e.g. Country and Western, Jazz, Classical, etc); (v) whether respondents’ have a preference for, firstly, low-pitched versus high-pitched instruments/voices; secondly, music with instruments-only, voice-only, or both instruments and voice; and lastly, music with smaller number of performers versus greater number of performers; (vi) practical methods or ‘tips’ for enhancing everyday music listening enjoyment were collated; and finally, (vii) respondents were asked for their views and opinions on the content and logistics of a ‘take-home’ MTP for improving their music listening enjoyment. One-hundred postlingually deafened adult CI users, ranging in age from 18 to 88 years (mean = 62.1, SD = 17.1), completed the UCMLQ. All respondents used a Nucleus CI24 implant and the ACE speech processing strategy. Results showed that following implantation, respondents generally found music to be less enjoyable but they also preferred certain types of instruments and music: (i) low-frequency instruments over high-frequency instruments; (ii) certain instruments (e.g. the guitar) over others (e.g. brass instruments); (iii) smaller numbers of performers as opposed to larger numbers; (iv) Country and Western music as opposed to Pop/Rock, Jazz, Classical-small group, and Classical-orchestra; and (v) music with a slow rhythm/beat, and words. A comparison of the ratings given by CI and Hearing Aid (CI+HA) users and CI-only users also revealed that CI+HA users felt that they were significantly more able to follow the melody-line of musical styles, identify these styles, and they also rated musical styles to sound significantly ‘more normal’ than the CI-only users did. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups’ (CI+HA users versus CI-only users) ratings for common instrumental sounds. In regards to respondents’ interest in partaking in a ‘take-home’ music training program (MTP), 54% of respondents stated that they would be interested in undertaking one. Respondents also indicated that the MTP should focus on improving their ability to recognise tunes, in particular, tunes known before implantation, and commonly-known tunes, and the MTP should offer a wide range of musical styles. In addition, training sessions should be of 30- minutes duration, 2 times per week, and the MTP should come in the form of a DVD with subtitles. Overall, this study collected information which not only helps us to better understand CI users’ appreciation of music but also could be used in the shaping and development of a future MTP.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1995. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Lenore Pogonowski. Dissertation Committee: Harold F. Abeles. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-239).

Infants acculturate to their soundscape over the first year of life (e.g., Hannon & Trehub, 2005a; Werker & Tees, 1984). This perceptual tuning of early auditory skills requires integrating across experiences that repeat and vary in content and are distributed in time. Music is part of this soundscape, yet little is known about the real-world musical input available to infants as they begin learning sounds, melodies, rhythms, and words. In this dissertation, we collected and analyzed a first-of-its-kind corpus of music identified in day-long audio recordings of 6- to 12-month-old infants and their caregivers in their natural, at-home environments. We characterized the structure of this input in terms of key distributional and temporal properties that shape learning in many domains (e.g., Oakes & Spalding, 1997; Roy et al., 2015; Vlach et al., 2008; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). This everyday sensory input serves as the data available for infants to aggregate in order to build knowledge about music. We discovered that infants encountered nearly an hour of cumulative music per day distributed across multiple instances. Infants encountered many different tunes and voices in their daily music. Within this diverse range, infants encountered consistency, such that some tunes and voices were more available than others in infants’ everyday musical input. The proportion of music produced by live voices varied widely across infants. As infants progressed in time through their days, they encountered many music instances close together in time as well as some music instances separated by much longer lulls. This bursty temporal pattern also characterized how infants encountered instances of their top tune and their top voice – the specific tune and specific voice that occurred for the longest cumulative duration in each infant’s day. Finally, infants encountered many pairs of consecutive music bouts with repeated content – the same unique tune or the same unique voice. Taken together, we discovered that infants’ everyday musical input was more consistent than random in both content and time across infants’ days at home. These findings have potential to inform theory and future research examining how the nature of early music experience shapes infants’ early learning.

While hearing aids are optimized for listening to and hearing speech in noisy environ- ments, there are still many challenges when using hearing aids to listen to music. This could mean that hearing impaired individuals do not perceive music the same way a normal hearing person would. When two musical tones are played simultaneously at equal presentation levels, the tone with the higher frequency will be perceived as more salient for a normal hearing person. This phenomenon is referred to as the high voice superiority effect. This study examined how different types of hearing loss affect the neural pitch salience profile obtained with a computational model of the auditory periphery. More specifically, the high voice superiority effect was examined by generating neural pitch salience profiles for different combinations of simultaneous tones at different sound presentation levels. To model other aspects of hearing aid processing, an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) and simple noise reduction filter were added to some of the simulations. The results show that less severe hearing loss types tend to have pitch salience profiles closer to normal after hearing aid amplification. The addition of the ADC to the simulation seems to have little effect on the pitch salience, whereas the noise reduction filter has a noticeable effect on how closely the pitch salience profile matches that of a normal hearing ear. For each different type of hearing loss there appears to be a trade-off between the ability of the upper tone and the lower tone to match normal hearing performance. Along with simulated piano tone results, pitch salience results are shown for live recordings of several instruments through hearing aids. The recordings are compared to ideal versions of the instrument parts. This study provides a starting point to improve hearing aid processing for music perception. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / While hearing aids are optimized for listening to speech, they still face challenges when listening to music. This study examined how different types of hearing loss and hearing aid amplification affect music perception, using the measure of neural pitch salience. The results show that less severe hearing loss types tend to have pitch salience profiles closer to normal after amplification. Along with simulated piano tone results, pitch salience results are shown for live recordings of several instruments through hearing aids. The recordings are compared to ideal versions of the instrument parts. This study provides a starting point to improve hearing aid processing for music perception.

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