This study examined the relationship between the assessed musical sound-quality perception of cochlear implant (CI) users and their subjective music perception and music-related quality of life (QoL). The aim is to provide a comprehensive assessment by combining a relatively objective Turkish MUSHRA (TR-MUSHRA) test with a subjective music questionnaire.
Thirty CI users and thirty normal-hearing (NH) adults were evaluated. Sound-quality perception was assessed with the TR-MUSHRA test, and subjective assessments with the Music-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire (MuRQoL).
The TR-MUSHRA results showed that NH participants perceptually rated all filtered stimuli as different from the original, whereas CI users made less distinction in perceived sound quality by giving similar scores to stimuli with adjacent high-pass filter settings. On the MuRQoL, the groups differed on the Frequency subscale but not on the Importance subscale. In both groups, no significant correlation was found between TR-MUSHRA and MuRQoL subscale scores.
The findings show that TR-MUSHRA is an effective tool for assessing perceived sound quality in a relatively objective way, but that there is no relationship between perceiving sound-quality differences and self-reported measures of music engagement and importance. Subjective music experience may represent domains beyond sound-quality perception; therefore, successful auditory rehabilitation requires personalized strategies.
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