Processing of Relevant Characteristics of Complex Sounds in Normal-Hearing Listeners and Cochlear Implant Users

The auditory processing of complex signals is not yet fully understood making a clearer insight into auditory system processes worth aspiring to. One approach for this purpose is to gain a better understanding of the relations between physical parameters and hearing sensations by means of psychoacoustics. Suitable measures such as loudness help to characterize the perception of sound leading to more sophisticated loudness models which could be useful in optimizing hearing devices such as cochlear implants. The scope of this thesis therefore is the suprathreshold perception of sounds with different spectral, temporal and spatial content in normal-hearing listeners and cochlear implant users. Among others, this covers the applicability of categorical loudness scaling as a fast procedure to assess partial loudness as well as binaural and spatial hearing in cochlear implant users in a free-field measurement setup providing realistic spatial cues.