Differential weighting of temporal envelope cues from the low-frequency region for Mandarin sentence recognition in noise

BACKGROUND: Temporal envelope cues are conveyed by cochlear implants (CIs) to hearing loss patients to restore hearing. Although CIs could enable users to communicate in clear listening environments, noisy environments still pose a problem. To improve speech-processing strategies used in Chinese CIs, we explored the relative contributions made by the temporal envelope in various frequency regions, as relevant to Mandarin sentence recognition in noise. METHODS: Original speech material from the Mandarin version of the Hearing in Noise Test (MHINT) was mixed with speech-shaped noise (SSN), sinusoidally amplitude-modulated speech-shaped noise (SAM SSN), and sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) white noise (4 Hz) at a + 5 dB signal-to-noise ratio, respectively. Envelope information of the noise-corrupted speech material was extracted from 30 contiguous bands that were allocated to five frequency regions. The intelligibility of the noise-corrupted speech material (temporal cues from one or two regions were removed) was measured to estimate the relative weights of temporal envelope cues from the five frequency regions. RESULTS: In SSN, the mean weights of Regions 1–5 were 0.34, 0.19, 0.20, 0.16, and 0.11, respectively; in SAM SSN, the mean weights of Regions 1–5 were 0.34, 0.17, 0.24, 0.14, and 0.11, respectively; and in SAM white noise, the mean weights of Regions 1–5 were 0.46, 0.24, 0.22, 0.06, and 0.02, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the temporal envelope in the low-frequency region transmits the greatest amount of information in terms of Mandarin sentence recognition for three types of noise, which differed from the perception strategy employed in clear listening environments. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12868-022-00721-z.