Question

why is speech heard clearer through cochlear implants than music or singing, and what touch receptors are being stimulated by haptic hearing

Answer 1

why is speech heard clearer through cochlear implants than music or singing, and what touch receptors are being stimulated by haptic hearing

The basic functional principle underlying cochlear implants is that useful hearing sensations can be elicited in a sensorineurally deaf ear by stimulating auditory neurons directly with controlled electric currents.

Much of the published research on how cochlear implant users perceive music apparently rests on the assumption that music can be characterized as an organized sequence of sounds that have a small number of fundamental features, including rhythm, melody, and timbre. Additional attributes of sounds, such as harmony and the overall loudness, also contribute to the structure of music. Each of these properties can be described, at least approximately, in terms of physical parameters of acoustic signals. For example, the loudness of a sound is related to its intensity, and rhythm is conveyed in most musical styles by moderately rapid variations in loudness.

The task of discriminating between different pitch contours is related to melody identification, but is generally more difficult because of the reduced number of auditory cues available in the test material. In a typical melodic pattern recognition experiment, listeners are asked to label two pitch sequences as the same or different. The notes forming each pair of sequences are presented with identical rhythms, and no coincident verbal cues such as sung words are presented. Thus, discrimination relies on the listener's ability to perceive a pattern of changes in pitch. However, neither the absolute nor the relative pitch of each note needs to be perceived accurately for discrimination of the two sequences to be possible. For example, detection of an overall pitch contour, such as perception of a generally rising or falling pitch across each entire sequence of notes, may be sufficient for a listener to discriminate the sequences

What enables people to recognize melodies? First, there is the question of which tunes are sufficiently familiar to a listener such that he or she would be able to name them on hearing them. This ability depends on a range of highly variable factors, such as the individual's musical training and listening experience, the social culture within which that experience has been gained, and the person's memory of both the tunes and their titles. Recognition is also likely to be affected by the situational context in which the music is heard. For example, in the Western musical tradition, Happy Birthday is rated amongst the most familiar melodies for the general population and it is immediately recognizable by nearly everyone in the appropriate circumstances regardless of the intonation of the notes, the correctness of the rhythm, or the acoustical quality of the listening situation. Thus, the ability to perceive accurately fundamental features of musical sounds, such as pitch and temporal patterns, is not always a prerequisite for melody recognition.

The implant users would be able to recognize melodies that have a distinctive rhythmic pattern more readily than melodies that are less rhythmic.

Vestibular (balance) receptors are being stimulated by haptic hearing.