Children with bilateral cochlear implants identify emotion in speech and music

Abstract

Objectives

This study examined the ability of prelingually deaf children with bilateral implants to identify emotion (i.e. happiness or sadness) in speech and music.

Methods

Participants in Experiment 1 were 14 prelingually deaf children from 5–7 years of age who had bilateral implants and 18 normally hearing children from 4–6 years of age. They judged whether linguistically neutral utterances produced by a man and woman sounded happy or sad. Participants in Experiment 2 were 14 bilateral implant users from 4–6 years of age and the same normally hearing children as in Experiment 1. They judged whether synthesized piano excerpts sounded happy or sad.

Results

Child implant users' accuracy of identifying happiness and sadness in speech was well above chance levels but significantly below the accuracy achieved by children with normal hearing. Similarly, their accuracy of identifying happiness and sadness in music was well above chance levels but significantly below that of children with normal hearing, who performed at ceiling. For the 12 implant users who participated in both experiments, performance on the speech task correlated significantly with performance on the music task and implant experience was correlated with performance on both tasks.

Discussion

Child implant users' accurate identification of emotion in speech exceeded performance in previous studies, which may be attributable to fewer response alternatives and the use of child-directed speech. Moreover, child implant users' successful identification of emotion in music indicates that the relevant cues are accessible at a relatively young age.

Keywords:

• Cochlear implants
• Children
• Emotion
• Perception
• Speech
• Music

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the parents and children who participated in this research, Deanna Feltracco for assistance with data collection, and Vicky Papaioannou and Jerome Valero for general assistance and encouragement. Funding for this research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.