COCHLEAR IMPLANTS CAN TALK BUT CANNOT SING IN TUNE

The cochlear implant is rightfully considered as one of the greatest success stories in Australian biomedical research and development. It provides sound sensation to hundreds of thousands of people around the world, many of whom are able to understand and produce speech. The device was developed in order to optimize speech perception, and parameters such as the choice of frequency bands and signal processing used were chosen in order to maximise perceptual differences between speech vowels. However, these settings are far from being suited for the perception of music, which might partly explain why many cochlear implant recipients cannot enjoy music through their implant.