Perceiving melody remains challenging for implant wearers

Abstract

What are the main implications of the research reviewed above for people who are considering cochlear implantation or for professionals involved in this field? Most importantly, it is difficult to generalize about how well a particular person listening via an implant might perceive music. Although most implant users can experience musical rhythm satisfactorily, their ability to identify instruments by their sounds alone and to recognize melodies using only pitch cues varies widely. On average, these abilities are much poorer than those of most people with normal hearing, and the quality of musical sounds is also reported to be generally inferior to that described by normal-hearing listeners...