Musical consonance-dissonance task in normal hearing and cochlear implant users

Hypothesis: This proposed harmonic consonance-dissonance music perception task is expected to reveal a monotonic relationship between harmonic consonance and pleasantness ratings by NH listeners. Additionally, CI recipients will be able to distinguish between the most consonant and most dissonant music samples, although with less contrast between each condition than the NH cohort and with lower overall ratings of sound quality. Finally, we hypothesize that listeners with extensive music training would show more pronounced differences in pleasantness ratings across the four tiers of consonance to dissonance. 
Background: Harmonic consonance and dissonance play crucial roles in how music is perceived, affecting its perceived quality and pleasantness. However, tools to evaluate these musical aspects, especially for CI users, are scarce, leading to significant knowledge gaps. This study aimed to refine previous methods by emphasizing the variability and typically lower scores among CI users..., Subjects
A group of 21 NH listeners, including 13 women and 8 men, with an average age of 33.5 ± 14.0 (mean ± one standard deviation, range: 24 to 71 years) participated in the study (Table 1). Prior to participation, NH subjects completed a hearing screening which consisted of responding to pure-tone stimuli presented at 25 dB HL at octave intervals from 250 – 8000 Hz in each ear. A separate group of 13 CI recipients, including 6 women and 7 men, were aged 57.4 ± 10.1 years (range: 42 to 77 years) and were previously implanted with MED-EL devices. Twelve were unilaterally implanted and one was bilaterally implanted, yielding 14 CI ears tested. The CI cohort had a distribution of electrode array insertion depths ranging from 450 to 673 degrees, with an average of 564 ± 59 deg. Ten ears had received a Flex28 (28 mm) array and four ears a FlexSoft (31.5 mm) array.
All participants completed a music history questionnaire outlining the duration, setting, and age of starting music training, ..., , # Harmonic Consonance-Dissonance Study

#### **Description of the Data File**

Top row is headers

Each subsequent row is the data from a single subject.

NH: Normal hearing group

CI: Cochlear implant group

ID: Subject identification code

0A, 1A, 2A, etc.: The number references the melody (numbered 0-9) and the letter references the harmonic consonance-dissonance tier (A-D). The score listed is from 0-100.  These scores represent the following sound quality ratings: (0) \"Not at all pleasant\", (25) \"Slightly pleasant\", (50) \"Moderately Pleasant\", (75) \"Very Pleasant\", (100) \"Extremely Pleasant\".

YrsMusicalTraining: Years of formal musical training reported by subject on a questionnaire.

HrsPerWeekListeningToMusic: Hours per week of time spent listening to music reported by subject on a questionnaire.

Duration Of Sev-Prof HL Prior to CI Activation (yrs): Duration of severe-to-profound hearing loss prior to cochlear implantation activation, in years, a correlate of neural survival in...