Understanding Emotions in Speech for Cochlear Implant Users
Official title: Perception and Production of Emotional Prosody with Cochlear Implants
Funded at Father Flanagan's Boys' Home · NIH-11129784 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project helps us understand how children and adults with cochlear implants hear and express emotions in spoken language.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Father Flanagan's Boys' Home NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Boys Town, United States) |
| Project start | July 1, 2022 |
| Project end | June 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $537,973 |
| NIH project number | 5R01DC019943-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11129784 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates for this research would be children and adults who use cochlear implants and experience challenges with vocal emotion communication.
✕Less likely to help
Patients without cochlear implants or those who do not experience difficulties with emotional speech perception may not directly benefit from this specific research.
What this research studies
For people with hearing loss who use cochlear implants, detecting emotions in speech can be a significant challenge, impacting their social connections and quality of life. This project aims to uncover the specific ways that children and adults with cochlear implants perceive and produce emotional speech. We will explore how different voice characteristics, like pitch and intensity, are used by individual patients to communicate emotions. By learning more about these mechanisms, we hope to identify factors that can predict how well someone with a cochlear implant understands and expresses emotions.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to better ways for cochlear implant users to understand and express emotions, improving their social interactions and overall quality of life.
How similar studies have gone: While the challenge of emotion perception in cochlear implant users is known, this project proposes a novel mechanistic hypothesis to explain variability, building on existing observations.
Where this research is happening
-
Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
Boys Town, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Chatterjee, Monita — Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
- Study coordinator: Chatterjee, Monita
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.