*3.1. Materials and Methods*

#### 3.1.1. Population

The subjects included in study 2 (N = 43) were from study 1. The group consisted of 19 males and 24 females (mean age: 55.7 years; minimum 20 years; maximum 85 years). 4 subjects (9%) had primary school education, 13 (30%) subjects had secondary school education and 25 (58%) had higher education. Data on the educational level of 1 (2%) subject was missing. The origin of the hearing loss was variable: acquired hearing loss (*n* = 31), congenital hearing loss (*n* = 12). The etiologies were diverse: 11 subjects had presbycusis, 5 subjects had congenital bilateral profound hearing loss, 3 subjects had otosclerosis-related hearing loss, 3 subjects had genetic hearing loss, 2 subjects had Pendred's syndrome, 2 subjects had Meniere's disease, 2 subjects had Meniere's disease associated with chronic otitis, 2 subjects had hearing loss due to inner ear malformations, and 2 subjects had congenital deafness with abrupt worsening. 11 subjects had other etiologies: fragile X syndrome, autoimmune, idiopathic, meningitis, chronic ear infections, ototoxicity, sepsis.

At the end of the pre-implant assessment in Study 1, some participants had no indication for cochlear implantation. For other participants, data on verbal fluency at 3 months post-implantation were missing. These reasons explain the difference in participants between Study 1 and Study 2.

#### 3.1.2. Materials and Procedure

Different brands of cochlear implants were used: Medel (*n* = 15), Cochlear (*n* = 16), Advanced Bionics (*n* = 7) and Oticon Medical (*n* = 7).

Subjects were reviewed at a post-cochlear implant assessment session approximately 3 months after surgery. During this assessment, they were randomly retested for semantic and phonemic fluencies.
