Software for running psychoacoustic experiments (Aleksander Sek & Brian Moore)

Current research in the field of psychoacoustics is mostly conducted using a computer to generate and present the stimuli and to collect the responses of the subject. Professor Aleksander Sek and Professor Brian Moore have developed a software package that makes it possible to set up and conduct a wide variety of experiments in psychoacoustics without the need for time-consuming programming or technical expertise. Possible experiments include:

• measurement of the absolute threshold
• simultaneous and forward masking (including notched-noise masking)
• comodulation masking release
• intensity and frequency discrimination
• amplitude-modulation detection and discrimination
• gap detection
• discrimination of interaural time and level differences
• measurement of sensitivity to temporal fine structure
• measurement of the binaural masking level difference

The free software can be downloaded from: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/hearing/software-running-psychoacoustic-experiments

More information on the software can be found here:  https://press.amu.edu.pl/en/wprowadzenie%20do%20pakietu%20psychoacoustics%20(pdf).html

Carlyon Filter Model

Carlyon et al (2005) described a simple model which predicts cochlear implant users’ thresholds for electrical pulse trains. We have found that it successfully captures the effects of inter-phase gap, phase duration, and pulse rate over a wide range, and works both for symmetric pulses and for “pseudomonophasic” pulse trains. The model works by by passing the stimulus through a low-pass filter designed to capture the effects of frequency on detection thresholds for sinusoidal electrical stimulation. The software generates the pulse train for you, but can easily be modified to generate sine waves or indeed any analogue waveform. It is written in MATLAB and should run on any platform supporting that language, although we have only tested it on various versions of windows.

The software can be downloaded here. Please note that use of the software is at your own risk and implies acceptance of the disclaimer shown in the readme file.

We hope that you find the software useful; if so please cite the following publication, which contains full details of how the model works:

Carlyon, R. P., van Wieringen, A., Deeks, J. M., Long, C. J., Lyzenga, J., & Wouters, J. (2005). Effect of inter-phase gap on the sensitivity of cochlear implant users to electrical stimulation. Hearing research, 205(1-2), 210–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2005.03.021

The STRIPES test of spectro-temporal processing

Background

STRIPES (Spectro-Temporal Ripple for Investigating Processor EffectivenesS) is a non-speech test of spectro-temporal sensitivity. It was designed for use with Cochlear Implant (CI) listeners, for example allowing one to test new methods of stimulation, signal-processing, or programming, without the confounding effects of familiarity that occur with speech tests. The test presents listeners with concurrent sinusoidal sweeps that either increase or decrease in frequency over time and requires listeners to discriminate between downward- and upward-sweeping stimuli (Fig. 1).

The STRIPES test was originally developed and validated using direct auditory input to the  Advanced Bionics CI (Archer-Boyd et al., 2018), and subsequently shown to work well with free-field presentation (Archer-Boyd et al., 2020).  Differences in STRIPES scores have been shown to correlate, across listeners, with differences in performance between two experimental speech-processing strategies (Goehring et al., 2019). STRIPES has also been shown to correlate with individual measures of channel interaction using spectrally blurred speech-in-noise stimuli (Goehring et al., 2020).

webSTRIPES

We have now developed an online version of the test (Archer-Boyd et al., 2023) that can be run by CI participants using any device, such as a mobile phone or tablet, that they can use to stream audio directly to their CI. All manufacturers provide this capability, which can be used in everyday life e.g. for making phone calls or listening to podcasts. Participants simply connect to the test using a web browser on their device, using a link sent to them by the experimenter. An example test can be run by clicking here (note that the task should initially be very easy for a normal-hearing person listening acoustically).

The software can be downloaded here. Please note that the use of the software is at your own risk and it is the responsibility of the user to verify safety prior to use. 

We hope that you find the software useful; if so please cite the following publication, which contains details of the development of webSTRIPES:

Archer-Boyd, A. W., Harland, A., Goehring, T., & Carlyon, R. P. (2023). An online implementation of a measure of spectro-temporal processing by cochlear-implant listeners. JASA express letters, 3(1), 014402. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0016838

The Panoramic ECAP Method

Garcia et al (2021) described a method (PECAP) for estimating current spread and neural responsiveness in Cochlear Implant users at each contact along the electrode array using Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potentials. You can find more information about this method on Charlotte Garcia’s page here.

The online implementation of PECAP is available at https://panoramic-ecap.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/, and the software for data collection may also be downloaded here.

We hope you find this software useful. If using it in support of written or presented research please cite the following publication:

Garcia, C., Goehring, T., Cosentino, S., Turner, R. E., Deeks, J. M., Brochier, T., Rughooputh, T., Bance, M., & Carlyon, R. P. (2021). The Panoramic ECAP Method: Estimating Patient-Specific Patterns of Current Spread and Neural Health in Cochlear Implant Users. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology : JARO, 22(5), 567–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-021-00795-2