Vocal Emotion Communication With Cochlear Implants

Part of paid clinical trials in Tempe, Arizona.

Sponsor
Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
Study ID
NCT05486637
Phase
EARLY_PHASE1
Status
Recruiting
Apply to this trial

Conditions

  • Cochlear Hearing Loss

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
6 Years - 80 Years
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Perception of acoustic cues to emotion — BEHAVIORAL
    Using novel methodologies and stimuli comprising both controlled laboratory recordings and materials culled from databases of ecologically valid speech emotions (e.g., from publicly available podcasts), the team aims to collect perceptual data to build a statistical model to test the hypothesis that experience-based changes in emotion identification by pediatric and adult CI recipients is mediated by improvements in cue-optimization.
  • Production of acoustic cues to emotion — BEHAVIORAL
    The team will acoustically analyze vocal emotion productions by participants, quantify acoustic features of spoken emotions, and obtain behavioral measures of how well normally hearing listeners can identify those emotions.

Study Details

Patients with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) show significant deficits and strong unexplained intersubject variability in their perception and production of spoken emotions in speech. This project will investigate the hypothesis that "cue-weighting", or how patients utilize the different acoustic cues to emotion, accounts for significant variance in emotional communication with CIs. The results will focus on children with CIs, but parallel measures in postlingually deaf adults with CIs will be made, ensuring that results of these studies benefit social communication by CI patients across the lifespan by informing the development of technological innovations and improved clinical protocols.

Key Dates

Start date
Jul 1, 2022
Status verified
Sep 2025
Primary completion
Jun 30, 2027
Completion
Jun 30, 2027

Study Design

Enrollment
255 participants (estimated)
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE

Arms

  • Experimental: Vocal emotion communication by children and adults with cochlear implants or normal hearing
    Participants will be native speakers of American English and include pediatric cochlear implant recipients with unilateral or bilateral devices aged 6-19 years, children with normal hearing aged 6-19 years, postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants, and adults with normal hearing. In Aim 1 participants will listen to emotional speech sounds and identify the talker's intended emotion. In Aim 2 participants will be invited to produce emotional speech by reading out scripted materials or in a more naturalistic conversational setting.

Primary Outcome Measure

Vocal emotion recognition accuracy [ Time Frame: Years 1-5 ]

Central Contacts

Locations (4)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
Arizona State UniversityTempeArizona85287
Xin Luo, Ph.D.
[email protected]
480-965-9251
House Institute FoundationLos AngelesCalifornia90017
John J Galvin, Ph.D.
[email protected]
Northwestern UniversityEvanstonIllinois60208
Monita Chatterjee, Ph.D.
[email protected]
Boys Town National Research HospitalOmahaNebraska68131
Monita Chatterjee, Ph.D.
[email protected]
531-355-5069
Dawna E Lewis, Ph.D.
[email protected]
531-355-6607
Sophie E Ambrose, Ph.D. (SUB_INVESTIGATOR)

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By research site
Arizona State University· Tempe, AZHouse Institute Foundation· Los Angeles, CANorthwestern University· Evanston, ILBoys Town National Research Hospital· Omaha, NE

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