Talker intelligibility differences in cochlear implant listeners

People vary in the intelligibility of their speech. This study investigated whether across-talker intelligibility differences observed in normally-hearing listeners are also found in cochlear implant (CI) users. Speech perception for male, female, and child pairs of talkers differing in intelligibility was assessed with actual and, simulated Cl processing and in normal hearing. While overall speech recognition was, as expected, poorer for Cl users, differences in intelligibility across talkers were consistent across all listener groups. This suggests that the primary determinants of intelligibility differences are preserved in the CI-processed signal, though no single critical acoustic property could be identified. (c) 2007 Acoustical Society of America.