Design and Evaluation of a Multisensory Concert for Cochlear Implant Users

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article presents a study on the design, implementation, and evaluation of vibrotactile concert furniture based on a participatory design methodology. The main focus of the study is to provide CI (cochlear implant) users with a multisensory concert experience, including audio, video and vibrotactile stimulation, in order to improve their live music immersion.

 

The topic of the article is very relevant and has the potential to have a great impact in today's society. Also, the methodology is sound, and the article is well written and structured.

 

Although there is not enough experimental evidence (as only a few individuals participated in the study) to explain the influence of the vibrotactile furniture on the overall CI users population, the research direction of this article is helpful to raising awareness on the subject and thus highlights an interesting research topic, even more when compared to other previously used approaches.

 

A suggestion that could improve the understanding of the context of the article would be to add a paragraph right at the introduction, regarding cochlear implants and how they work. The notion that cochlear implants are small, complex electronic devices that can help profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing users have a sense of sound would be very beneficial for readers. Also, the use of a cochlear implant requires both a surgical procedure and substantial therapy for users to learn (or relearn) the sense of hearing, and not everyone performs at the same level with these devices. This storytelling could be helpful for readers to “get the big picture” and have a macro perception on the theme. In this regard, a distinction between cochlear implants and hearing aids would also be valuable.

 

During the reading of the article, we are aware that a different number of CI users participate in the different phases. However, sometimes this is confusing. For example, during the concert it is said that five users participated, but we read in line 668 there were only four CI participants. Is this correct? It could be better explained.

 

It was also mentioned that other hearing aid users and children with cochlear implants attended the event. The conclusion of the authors that these users were also interested in the prototype and saw potential in it could be of importance for future work.

 

Finally, there are a few typos that can be revised:

-        The section number is at fault (line #159);

-        “…set up a [not and] multi-channel…” (line #193);

-        “Don’t stop me [not be] now…” (line #404);

-        “…guitar respectively…” (line #403);

-        “…of two [not tow] sets of two…” (line #599);

-        “to tap their feet [not feed] or nod…” (line #669);

-        “…the hand grip was [not did] not.” (line #677);

-        “…continued to communicate [without use] through…” (line #680);

-        “…with the [not te] vibrotactile” (line #684).

 

Overall, I think this work is novel, and should have value to the research community. I especially appreciate that the authors provide demonstration photos of both the prototype and the concert itself, which I think significantly improves its value as a publication and allows other researchers to build from this work, including doing studies of their own on this kind of haptic interface for a multisensory experience regarding this target users.

 

Good job!

Author Response

Thank your for your careful reading and suggestions.

We have added a paragraph in the intro explaining CIs and how they work, as you rightfully suggest, highlighting that therapy and training aspects as crucial for a successful rehabilitation. Besides that, we have corrected all typos and we clarified the confusion between 4 and 5 CI users - 4 (out of 5) referred to "at the time of observation".

Reviewer 2 Report

Peer review report for ARTS

Article title: “DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A MULTISENSORY CONCERT FOR COCHLEAR IMPLANT USERS”

Reviewers comments to the article:

OVERALL: the present article is an original translational research on the development of a multisensory and augmented live concert experience for cochlear implant (CI) users. The research is well designed and the manuscript is soundy. Nonetheless there are some aspects that may be improved by the authors to ameliorate the work and its fruibility. Generally speaking authors should consider summarizing and schematizing more with the objective to boost the efficacy of their work. 

ABSTRACT: coherent with the article in the actual form, avoid the repetition of “results” in line 13.

1-2. INTRODUCTION and RELATED WORK: authors could consider joining these sections, as they both have the same function to resume the existing literature on the theme. In the section 2.2 authors correctly affirm that “In order to gauge the effects of the implants, speech recognition tests are predominantly used”, and thereafter the existence of questionnaires is mentioned. It has to be said that specific tests and questionnaire to evaluate music abilities of CI patients have been developed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33997721/) and that specific music questionnaire have been shown to overcome the limits of general audiometric tests (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36433364/).

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS: in section 3.1.2 “partecipants”, the audiological information given for each of the three patients are not exaustive. This is not a major concern considering the reeders of the journal, but for coherence the same kind of information should be given for all the patients (e.g. hearing threshold, time of CI use…). The authors could consider requiring the help of an ENT and/or Audiologist. Moreover, it would be nice for the readers to have a table resembling the main features and results of the short case series. 

Limitation: the main limitation, from a scientific point of view, is the low number of participants, unstructured selection process and lack of inclusion-exclusion criteria (consider to number this section separately). Most of the limitations you mentioned regarding the methodological procedures are maybe given by the correct admission in the conclusion section that “the field is in its infancy”. 

Section 3.3.2 “Discussion”, please consider moving this paragraph to a section 4 (discussion and conclusion) or 4. Discussion; 5. Conclusion.

4. CONCLUSIONS: please, explain better how “The model human cochlea” experience merges with your results. Please stress how ameliorating musical experience of CI users could be useful for their quality of life (e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28326996/; and look at this special issue: ​​https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34456682/)

7. REFERENCES: can be improved, to less reference in respect to the amount of words of the manuscript.

TABLES and figures: may be improoved.

The author of this peer-review declares that there is no conflict of interest.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank your for your comments and careful reading, and suggestions for improvement.

1. We did not consider feasible to merge the intro and related work chapters, as the introduction chapter was extended a bit as suggested by another reviewer, besides including a paragraph about benefits of music listening for CI, as your suggestion implies. Nevertheless, we mentioned that specific music questionnaires have been developed (MuRQoL) and deployed, as you rightfully suggested.
2. We have separated the discussion and conclusion into separate chapters, as suggested.
3. We have explained what the "Model Human Cochlea" implies, and how it relates to our project.