Gender Shift

Gender
I think I mentioned earlier that all voices seem to sound alike through the CI. Whether male or female, young or old, they sound essentially like the voice of a woman or perhaps that of a youth. This is likely because the CI doesn't pick up the lower notes well and that's where people's voices differ most.

When there are no other cues, as when listening to an audio-book, I can understand what is being said but don't have much sense of who is saying it. Add in some other cue and it becomes much more apparent. In my case, that means listening in with my left ear via a hearing aid. So:

• listen with the right ear only (CI) and the voice sounds like a woman's voice
• listen with both ears and I can affirm that it's definitely a male voice
• turn off the left ear (hearing aid) and the voice gradually drifts away and starts to sound like a woman again over the space of a few minutes
• turn on the left ear and it immediately returns to be a male voice
• turn off the left ear again and after a few minutes it again starts to sound like a woman.
  

Very strange!

Clocks
Last Saturday, I spent the morning doing housework including a thorough dusting of my office which seems to get dusty very quickly. I don't wear my hearing aid and CI while using the vacuum-cleaner, since the noise is quite loud. I can see why dogs are so afraid of vacs!

I found my small battery operated clock was no longer working as the battery had died. It's the old-fashioned type with hands. So I replaced the battery with a fresh one and went on vacuuming.

Later in the day, I went back to my office to do some things on the computer. I became aware of a new rhythmic noise. Tick-tock, tick-tock, etc. What was that? The disk drive about to die? Some sort of beetle that comes to life in mid-winter? No ... it's the clock! Now this may sound strange but it's a few years since I've heard a clock ticking. Mostly because clocks these days don't tick but also because I've simply lost the ability to hear it.

Green Lights
My CI comes with three programs: one for 'normal' hearing, another that's optimized for music and a third that's the same as the first but uses a microphone that's in a different position. I haven't used the last program much as it's somewhat redundant. While looking in a mirror yesterday, I discovered that this program has an interesting feature: a green LED on top of the CI flashes in sync with any sounds that are being picked up!

I guess it's a diagnostic feature for use by audiologists or parents whose kids have CI's. I wonder what other uses it might have?!