While a cochlear implant provides many patients with excellent speech understanding in quiet,
music perception and appreciation remains a challenge for most cochlear implant users. Recent
studies have shown that a closed-set melodic contour identification (MCI) task could be used to
quantify cochlear implant users’ ability to recognize musical melodies [Galvin, J.J. III, Fu, Q-J., and
Nogaki, G. (2007). “Melodic Contour Identification in Cochlear Implants,” Ear and Hearing 28(3),
302-319]. This advanced module provides MIDI-based Melodic Contour Identification Training for CI
patients to aid them in improving their recognization of melodies, thereby improving their music
appreciation. For the MCI task, test stimuli were melodic contours composed of 5 notes of equal
duration whose frequencies corresponded to musical intervals. The interval between successive
notes in each contour was varied between 1 and 5 semitones; the “root note” of the contours was
also varied. Nine distinct musical patterns were generated for each interval and root note condition.
This is a screen shot of the display window.
Temporal Patterns for All Instruments:
Spectral Patterns for All Instruments: