LAUSR

Matching the interaural place of stimulation is likely to improve binaural processing for bilateral (BI) and single-sided deafness (SSD) cochlear-implant (CI) listeners. Although pitch matching can be used to estimate interaural mismatch for these listeners, non-sensory biases (e.g., responding to the test-frequency range rather than interaural pitch comparisons) could influence the accuracy of place-match estimates. This study evaluated pitch discrimination as a method of estimating the relative interaural places of stimulation for individual CI electrodes for BI-CI and SSD-CI listeners. Three different frequency ranges, and randomization of the stimulus presentation across reference electrodes, were used to measure non-sensory biases. Results showed substantial frequency-range effects for the majority of reference electrodes tested for both listener groups, shifting place-match estimates by as much as about 7 mm for some listeners. Reference-electrode randomization affected a smaller proportion of the e...