Virtual Reality pitch ranking in children with cochlear implants, hearing aids or normal hearing

Abstract

When listening to music, one uses the hearing to identify all musical elements such as pitches, musical intervals, melodies, chords, rhythms, and timbre [1]. To determine the notes in a melody, it is critical to have the ability to distinguish and recognize musical pitches and their relationships. Subtle pitch changes play an important role in music perception, and major chords and harmonies, which may signal positive emotions, differ by one semitone from minor chords and harmonies which may signal negative emotions [2,3]. The pitch contour of a melody – its pattern of changes in pitch direction i.e. up or down, is perceptually noticeable for children with normal hearing (NH) and 5-year-old children can successfully identify, in other words pitch rank, upward and downward shifts of 4, 2, 1, 0.5, and 0.3 semitones i.e. a note not being on pitch, and these abilities improve from 5 to 8 years of age at which point they reach adult levels. The accuracy of pitch ranking decreases as the size of the shift i.e. number of semitones decreases