Emotion Perception in Cochlear Implant Users, Hearing Aid Users and Normal Hearing Children

Abstract

Perception of emotions through the auditory modality is an essential component of communication. It is known to help in the perception of pragmatic component of a message being transmitted. The present study aimed to compare the perception of four different emotions through the auditory mode in children with normal hearing sensitivity with that of two groups of children having hearing impairment (cochlear implant users and hearing aid users). In addition, the study aimed to compare the perception of the two groups with hearing impairment i.e. those using hearing aid and those using cochlear implants. The study also compared the perception across the four different emotions i.e. happy, sad, neutral and interjection. The results revealed that the participants with normal hearing sensitivity performed significantly better than the participants with hearing impairment in the overall perception of emotions (happy, neutral, sad and interjection) as well as the perception of each emotion. There was no significant difference in the overall perception of emotions and the perception of individual emotions among the two groups having hearing impairment (cochlear implant group and hearing aid group). Also the emotion sad was perceived best by all the participants and interjection was the poorest in all the groups of participants. The better perception of the sad emotion was attributed to contrastive acoustical features present in the signals.