• Korean Journal of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
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• v.61 no.11
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• pp.573-579
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• 2018

Background and Objectives Cochlear dead region (CDR) is a region in the cochlear where hearing loss has occurred due to damage to the inner hair cells and/or neurons. Recently, a subjective test involving a pure-tone test in the presence of threshold-equalizing noise (TEN) was introduced to identify CDR. However, for uncooperative patients, such a subjective method would be unsuitable and objective methods would be needed instead to detect CDR. The acoustic change complex (ACC) is an evoked potential elicited by changes in the ongoing sound. In this study, we developed an objective method of identifying CDR by combining ACC response with a TEN test, namely the TEN-ACC test, and investigated its feasibility in normal-hearing listeners. Subjects and Method Ten normal-hearing subjects participated in this study. All subjects underwent both behavioral TEN test and electrophysiological TEN-ACC test. The stimuli for the TEN-ACC test consisted of TEN and embedded pure tones with different frequencies/signals to noise ratios (SNRs). To identify the thresholds, the range SNR of stimulation was varied from 0 to 20 dB, in stages of 4 dB. Results The ACC responses of all subjects who participated in this study were well elicited by stimuli developed for the TEN-ACC test. We confirm that the pure-tones embedded in TEN elicited the objective ACC response. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that the novel TEN-ACC test can be applied to evoke ACC in normal-hearing listeners. Future research should incorporate hearing-impaired listeners to determine the feasibility of the TEN-ACC test as an objective method to identify CDR.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.29-47
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• 2024

The purpose of this study was to investigate how children with cochlear implants (CI) perceive emotion in music depending on mode and tempo cues, and to compare them to NH children. Participants in this study included 13 CI children who were implanted with either unilateral or bilateral cochlear implants aged between 7 and 13 years, 36 NH children, and 20 NH adults. The musical stimuli used in this study were piano recordings in either major or minor mode, with tempos of 130 bpm and 56 bpm. A comparison of the emotion perception levels of NH children and NH adults before the experiment showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups. Meanwhile, the way they perceive different emotions from each music condition varies, in that CI children perceived all music conditions except as happy, while NH children perceived music in a major key as happy and music in a minor key as sad. It supports that CI children tend to rely primarily on tempo cues to process and identify emotional information from music, which is contrary to NH children. It is important to note that this study enhanced and specified the understanding of how CI children perceive music emotion and use specific musical elements in the process. These findings indicate baseline data on emotion perception in music in CI children.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1993.06a
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• pp.238-241
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• 1993

We present a new method to normalize spectral variations of different speakers based on physiological studies of hearing. The proposed method uses the cochlear frequency map to warp the input speech spectra by interpolation or decimation. Using this normalization method, we can obtain much improved recognition results for speaker independent speech recognition.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1992 no.05
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• pp.218-218
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• 1992

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2007

Hearing loss in newborns is the most frequently occurring birth defect. If hearing impaired children are not identified and managed early, it is difficult for many of them to acquire the fundamental language, social and cognitive skills that provide the foundation for later schooling and success in society. All newborns, both high and low risk, should be screened for hearing loss in the birth hospital prior discharge (Universal Newborn Heaing Screening, UNHS). Objective physiologic measures must be used to detect newborns and very young infants with hearing loss. Recent technological developments have produced screening methods and both evoked otoacoustic emission (EOAE) and auditory brainstem response (ABR) have been successfully implemented for UNHS. Audiologic evaluation should be carried out before 3 months of age and infants with confirmed hearing loss should receive intervention before 6 months of age. All infants who pass newborn hearing screening but who have risk indicators for other auditory disorders and/or speech and language delay receive ongoing audiologic surveillance and monitoring for communication development. Infants with sensorineural hearing loss are managed with hearing aids and receive auditory and speech-language rehabilitation therapies. Cochlear implants can be an outstanding option for certain children aged 12 months and older with severe to profound hearing loss who show limited benefit from conventional amplifications.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.179-186
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• 2012

The aims of this study are to consider auditory physiological characteristics and to confirm audiological evaluation and interpretation in regards to cases of sensorineural hearing loss that observe an abnormal AB gap. Vestibulosaccular hearing occurs when there is an abnormally large air-bone gap (AB gap) in sensorineural hearing loss, also known as pure cochlear conductive hearing loss. Generally, an AB gap is caused by damage to the external and/or middle ear. In conductive hearing loss, loss of air condition hearing occurs due to a loss of resonance in the outer ear and/or impedance mismatching in the middle ear. Most of these types of hearing loss can be treated medically and surgically. However, there is no medical treatment for an AB gap in sensorineural hearing loss and hearing loss can worsen gradually or suddenly. In addition, many studies have reported that head trauma makes hearing loss even more serious. Therefore, in order to differentiate between conductive hearing losses, it is important to check whether or not there is an enlarged vestibular aqueduct by means of temporal bone computerized tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.292-299
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• 2007

In this paper, we present a speech recognition system using a throat microphone. The use of this kind of microphone minimizes the impact of environmental noise. Due to the absence of high frequencies and the partial loss of formant frequencies, previous systems using throat microphones have shown a lower recognition rate than systems which use standard microphones. To develop a high performance automatic speech recognition (ASR) system using only a throat microphone, we propose two methods. First, based on Korean phonological feature theory and a detailed throat signal analysis, we show that it is possible to develop an ASR system using only a throat microphone, and propose conditions of the feature extraction algorithm. Second, we optimize the zero-crossing with peak amplitude (ZCPA) algorithm to guarantee the high performance of the ASR system using only a throat microphone. For ZCPA optimization, we propose an intensification of the formant frequencies and a selection of cochlear filters. Experimental results show that this system yields a performance improvement of about 4% and a reduction in time complexity of 25% when compared to the performance of a standard ZCPA algorithm on throat microphone signals.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.201-211
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• 2004

This paper introduces a development of an electrical stimulator for auditory stimulation. The electrical stimulator is useful in neurotological diagnosis, audiological evaluation, candidate selection for cochlear implantation, optimal device selection and decision making of MAP strategy for severe-to-profound hearing impaired persons. The development was based on sound parameters of auditory brainstem responses and auditory electrophysiological characteristic such as effective firing of auditory nerve and recording evoked potentials during refractory period of neuron. Besides pulse parameter could adjustable by programming for more varied electrical stimulation evoked response audiometry. Using the electrical stimulator, electrical square pulse was applied to promontory, and electrically evoked auditory brainstem response and electrically middle latency response were successfully recorded in cats.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2014

Electrical compound action potential (ECAP) can be recorded on cochlear implant. This study will investigate stimulation and recording to enhance the efficacy of ECAP. 34 articles was used. We analyzed pulse and stimulating condition, artifact suppression, recording condition. The cathod-leading biphasic pulse was used with as short as possible pulse width and inter phase gap for the efficacy of neural firing, stable threshold and preventing neural degeneration. Around C-level was stimulated to apical, middle and basal turn of cochlea. Artifact was eliminated by forward-masking, template-subtraction technique. For clearer waveform, we need to change distance between stimulating and recording electrode, the gain of amplification, number of average.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.292-296
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• 2015

Biomimetic artificial basilar membrane being a core part of artificial cochlear requires performance evaluation through aging test. To evaluate the aging properties of PVDF piezoelectric membrane used for artificial basilar membrane, its mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elastic modulus and piezoelectric property such as piezoelectric constant were measured. The aging test conditions and acceleration constants were calculated based on Arrhenius model. The changes in tensile strengths and elastic moduli measured were less than 10~20% after aging test equivalent for 10 years. The piezoelectric constants were decreased drastically to 80% of its initial value in the early stage of the aging test and expected to decrease slowly down to 65% over 10 years. The experimental results show the reliability of totally implantable novel artificial cochlear and will contribute its commercialization.