Perception of emotional expression in cochlear implant users

Cochlear implants (CIs) have significantly improved speech comprehension in individuals with profound hearing loss. However, the perception of vocal emotions – critical for successful interpersonal interactions and quality of life – remains underexplored in CI users. This short report summarizes findings from a series of experiments, focusing on how CI users perceive vocal emotions, including the weighting of acoustic parameters in their perception, and the potential for perceptual training to improve performance. It also examines the role of audiovisual (AV) integration in emotion recognition. Across experiments, CI users demonstrated reduced emotion recognition accuracy, with substantial interindividual differences. Whereas normal-hearing (NH) individuals utilized timbre and fundamental frequency (F0) information to equivalent degrees when recognizing vocal emotions, CI users were considerably more efficient in using timbre (compared to fundamental frequency) information. Importantly, targeted perceptual training using vocal caricatures improved recognition performance. In addition, audiovisual integration enhanced emotion recognition, with a larger benefit in CI users than in NH controls. Together, these findings highlight the importance of vocal emotion perception in CI outcomes and suggest that enhancing this perceptual ability in CI users could play a vital role in improving their social communication and quality of life.