Talker variability in word recognition under cochlear implant simulation: Does talker gender matter?

Normal-hearing listeners are less accurate and slower to recognize words with trial-to-trial talker changes compared to a repeating talker. Cochlear implant (CI) users demonstrate poor discrimination of same-gender talkers and, to a lesser extent, different-gender talkers, which could affect word recognition. The effects of talker voice differences on word recognition were investigated using acoustic noise-vocoder simulations of CI hearing. Word recognition accuracy was lower for multiple female and male talkers, compared to multiple female talkers or a single talker. Results suggest that talker variability has a detrimental effect on word recognition accuracy under CI simulation, but only with different-gender talkers.