Multi-peak speech procession
First Claim
1. A multi-channel cochlear prosthesis including a patient implantable tissue stimulating multi-channel electrode array adapted to be positioned in a cochlea from an apical region of the cochlea to a basal region of the cochlea and having corresponding apical and basal regions therein, a patient implantable multi-channel stimulator connected to said array, and a patient externally worn programmable speech processor for processing sound signals into electrical stimulation signals that are transmitted to said stimulator, said prosthesis further comprising:
- means responsive to said sound signal for establishing a stimulation signal pulse rate;
means responsive to a dominant spectral peak in the region of between about 280 Hz to about 1000 Hz for determining a first formant of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in the apical region of said electrode array corresponding to the spectral peak of said first formant;
means responsive to a dominant spectral peak in the region of between about 800 Hz and about 4000 Hz for determining a second formant of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in the basal region of said electrode array corresponding to the spectral peak of said second formant; and
,at least one high frequency band filter for extracting spectral information in at least one region of the spectrum of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in said electrode array corresponding to said extracted spectral information, said electrode being in said basal region of said electrode array.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An improved pulsatile system for a cochlear prosthesis is disclosed. The system employs a multi-spectral peak coding strategy to extract a number, for example five, of spectral peaks from an incoming acoustic signal received by a microphone. It encodes this information into sequential pulses that are sent to selected electrodes of a cochlear implant. The first formant (F1) spectral peak (280-1000 Hz) and the second formant (F2) spectral peak (800-4000 Hz) are encoded and presented to apical and basal electrodes, respectively. F1 and F2 electrode selection follows the tonotopic organization of the cochlea. High-frequency spectral information is sent to more basal electrodes and low-frequency spectral information is sent to more apical electrodes. Spectral energy in the regions of 2000-2800 Hz, 2800-4000 Hz, and above 4000 Hz is encoded and presented to three fixed electrodes. The fundamental or voicing frequency (F0) determines the pulse rate of the stimulation during voiced periods and a pseudo-random aperiodic rate determines the pulse rate of stimulation during unvoiced periods. The amplitude of the acoustic signal in the five bands determines the stimulus intensity.
549 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A multi-channel cochlear prosthesis including a patient implantable tissue stimulating multi-channel electrode array adapted to be positioned in a cochlea from an apical region of the cochlea to a basal region of the cochlea and having corresponding apical and basal regions therein, a patient implantable multi-channel stimulator connected to said array, and a patient externally worn programmable speech processor for processing sound signals into electrical stimulation signals that are transmitted to said stimulator, said prosthesis further comprising:
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means responsive to said sound signal for establishing a stimulation signal pulse rate; means responsive to a dominant spectral peak in the region of between about 280 Hz to about 1000 Hz for determining a first formant of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in the apical region of said electrode array corresponding to the spectral peak of said first formant; means responsive to a dominant spectral peak in the region of between about 800 Hz and about 4000 Hz for determining a second formant of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in the basal region of said electrode array corresponding to the spectral peak of said second formant; and
,at least one high frequency band filter for extracting spectral information in at least one region of the spectrum of said sound signal and stimulating at least one electrode in said electrode array corresponding to said extracted spectral information, said electrode being in said basal region of said electrode array. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification