Perception of Emotion in Music in Adults with Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Music is an integral aspect of culture that is uniquely tied to our emotions. Previous studies have shown that hearing loss and cochlear implantation have deleterious effects on music and emotion perception, particularly cues related to pitch, melody, and mode. The purpose of this study is to examine acoustic cues that adults with cochlear implants might use to perceive emotion in music (e.g., tempo and pitch range), and whether prelingual or postlingual hearing loss plays a role in emotion perception. We anticipate approximately 5 adults (ages 18-50 years) with prelingual hearing loss who received cochlear implants before 3 years of age (prelingual group), 5 adults with postlingual hearing loss who received a cochlear implant after 7 years of age (postlingual group), and 10 adults who have normal hearing (control group). The participants will listen to a series of 40 melodies varied along tempo and pitch range. Twelve melodies will convey sadness (small pitch range; slow tempo) and 12 will convey happiness (large pitch range; fast tempo). The remaining 24 will present conflicting cues (small pitch range + fast tempo or large pitch range + slow tempo). We will ask participants to rate the emotion of the musical excerpt on a 7-point Likert scale along three dimensions: happy-sad, pleasant-unpleasant, and engaged-unengaged. Results from this study will help shed light on how effectively cochlear implants convey musical emotion, and could eventually lead to improvements in music perception in listeners with hearing loss