Speech polar plots for different directionality settings of SONNET cochlear implant processor.

The newest CI processor from MED-EL company, the SONNET, has two new directional microphone settings. Besides the Omnidirectional microphone mode, it has the possibility to switch to Natural or Adaptive directionality. Both new modes favour perception of sound coming from a front-facing direction compared to sounds from sources at alternate azimuths.

The use of cochlear's SCAN and wireless microphones to improve speech understanding in noise with the Nucleus6® CP900 processor.

Objectives: The newest Nucleus CI processor, the CP900, has two new options to improve speech-in-noise perception: (1) use of an adaptive directional microphone (SCAN mode) and (2) wireless connection to MiniMic1 and MiniMic2 wireless remote microphones.

Design: An analysis was made of the absolute and relative benefits of these technologies in a real-world mimicking test situation. Speech perception was tested using an adaptive speech-in-noise test (sentences-in-babble noise).

Spoken Word Recognition Errors in Speech Audiometry: A Measure of Hearing Performance?

This report provides a detailed analysis of incorrect responses from an open-set spoken word-repetition task which is part of a Dutch speech audiometric test battery. Single-consonant confusions were analyzed from 230 normal hearing participants in terms of the probability of choice of a particular response on the basis of acoustic-phonetic, lexical, and frequency variables. The results indicate that consonant confusions are better predicted by lexical knowledge than by acoustic properties of the stimulus word.