Artificial Hearing, Natural Speech

Cochlear Implants, Speech Production, and the Expectations of a High-Tech Society

This book explores the interface between speech perception and production through a longitudinal acoustic analysis of the speech of postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants (electrode and computer prostheses for the inner ear in cases of nerve deafness). The methodology is based on the work of Joseph Perkell at MIT, replicating and extending analysis to subjects with modern digital cochlear implants and processor technology. Lowenstein also examines how cochlear implants are portrayed in dramatic and documentary television programs, the scientific accuracy of those portrayals, and what expectations might be taken away by viewers, particularly given modern society's view that technology can overcome the frailties of the human body.