ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience
This article is part of the Research TopicHow Modern Technologies can be Helpful in Speech and Hearing Disorders and Sensory Organ Deterioration in the ElderlyView all 4 articles
Individual variation in suprasegmental perception: insights from adults with typical hearing and cochlear implants
Provisionally accepted
- 1Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, United States
- 2University of Washington, Seattle, United States
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Individuals vary in their ability to perceive suprasegmental cues, such as pitch, intensity, and duration, to make linguistic and nonlinguistic judgments, such as lexical stress, intonation, talker identity, and vocal emotion perception. For adult cochlear implant (CI) users, limitations in pitch perception significantly impair linguistic and nonlinguistic suprasegmental perception, creating barriers to effective real-world communication. While device-related factors are often emphasized in explaining variability in CI outcomes, growing evidence suggests that cognitive-linguistic factors play a critical role in shaping pitch-based suprasegmental perception. In this Perspective, we examine how cognitive-linguistic and experiential factors influence suprasegmental perception in both typically hearing listeners and adult CI users. We argue that these listener-level differences are essential to understanding variability in CI outcomes, offering insight beyond the effects of device limitations. We propose shifting from group-level generalizations to tailored rehabilitation strategies that target individual needs. Potential approaches include segmental speech training, auditory-cognitive training, and targeted pitch perception training. By identifying malleable sources of individual variation, we aim to support more personalized strategies to improve suprasegmental perception for both typically-hearing and hearing-impaired adults.
Keywords: suprasegmental perception, individual variation, Cochlear Implants, Emotion Perception, Talker identification
Received: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tamati and Ingvalson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Terrin N Tamati, terrin.tamati@vumc.org
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