Action–Sound Coincidences Suppress Evoked Responses of the Human Auditory Cortex in EEG and MEG

Abstract

The N1 auditory ERP and its magnetic counterpart (N1[m]) are suppressed when elicited by self-induced sounds. Because the N1(m) is a correlate of auditory event detection, this N1 suppression effect is generally interpreted as a reflection of the workings of an internal forward model: The forward model captures the contingency (causal relationship) between the action and the sound, and this is used to cancel the predictable sensory reafference when the action is initiated. In this study, we demonstrated in three experiments using a novel coincidence paradigm that actual contingency between actions and sounds is not a necessary condition for N1 suppression. Participants performed time interval production tasks: They pressed a key to set the boundaries of time intervals. Concurrently, but independently of keypresses, a sequence of pure tones with random onset-to-onset intervals was presented. Tones coinciding with keypresses elicited suppressed N1(m) and P2(m), suggesting that action-stimulus contiguity (temporal proximity) is sufficient to suppress sensory processing related to the detection of auditory events.

Action-related auditory ERP attenuation: Paradigms and hypotheses

“…The estimated auditory ERPs and ERFs for sounds following an action in a short time showed that the N1-and P2-attenuation effects fell off quickly (in couple hundred ms) as a function of action-sound separation (Horváth et al, 2012). Similarly to recent studies reporting Tb-attenuations in contingent settings, variations of the coincidence paradigm also showed Tb-attenuations (Horváth, 2013a; the retrospective inspection of previous data showed significant Tb-attenuations in Experiment 2, but not in Exp.…”

“…Makeig, Müller and Rockstroh (1996) showed that the amplitude and phase of the auditory steady state response was affected by concurrent, voluntary finger movements. Moreover, auditory N1 and P2 ERPs were attenuated when the sounds coincided with an action in the absence of a contingent actionsound relationship (Hazemann, Audin, & Lille, 1975;Horváth et al, 2012;Horváth 2013aHorváth , 2013bHorváth , 2014c.…”

“…It is assumed that participants attend the sounds in the Auditory condition (spontaneously, in the interest of maintaining vigilance, for example, or because they are instructed to) which leads to the enhancement of the auditory N1 (and P2). But this enhancement is removed when the participant performs the action in the Motor-Auditory condition because the participant focuses primarily on the action at the moment when it is initiated or performed, which leads to an apparent ERP attenuation (Horváth, Maess, Baess, & Tóth, 2012). Whether the enhanced N1 waveform includes a PN contribution probably depends on the experiment settings.…”

“…The coincidence paradigm (Horváth et al, 2012) administered in these studies requires participants to produce a sequence of actions just like the contingent paradigm does.…”

Contingent negative variation (CNV) associated with sensorimotor timing error correction

“…The decreased tap-tone asynchrony in the tapping negative condition is insufficient to explain the auditory N1 in terms of reduced selective attention and perception. When a perceptual stimulus was delivered in proximity to the execution of the movement, ERP components, particularly the auditory N1, were suppressed, demonstrating that a temporal contiguity between action and sound was sufficient to trigger such a suppressed auditory N1 response (Hazemann et al, 1975;Horváth, 2013aHorváth, , 2013bHorváth, , 2014Horváth et al, 2012). 'Action-related auditory suppression' would explain the suppression of N1 in the tapping negative condition, compared with the listening negative condition (Horváth et al, 2012).…”