A sound processing arrangement is described for a patient with a bilateral cochlear implant system having implanted electrode arrays in each ear. There is a left-side sensing microphone and a right-side sensing microphone, each configured for sensing the sound environment surrounding the patient and generating corresponding microphone signals. A sound object identification module is configured for analyzing the microphone signals to identify one or more sound objects within the sound environment. A sound object selection module is configured for processing the microphone signals to generate a sound object signal for each of the one or more sound objects. A stimulation side selector module is configured for selecting on which side or sides of the bilateral cochlear implant arrangement to process each sound object signal. One or more sound processors processes the sound object signals to generate stimulation signals to the implanted electrode arrays on the selected side or sides.
