Delta/Theta band EEG activity shapes the rhythmic perceptual sampling of auditory scenes

Abstract

Many studies speak in favor of a rhythmic mode of listening, by which the encoding of acoustic information is structured by rhythmic neural processes at the time scale of about 1 to 4 Hz. Indeed, psychophysical data suggest that humans sample acoustic information in extended soundscapes not uniformly, but weigh the evidence at different moments for their perceptual decision at the time scale of about 2 Hz. We here test the critical prediction that such rhythmic perceptual sampling is directly related to the state of ongoing brain activity prior to the stimulus. Human participants judged the direction of frequency sweeps in 1.2 s long soundscapes while their EEG was recorded. We computed the perceptual weights attributed to different epochs within these soundscapes contingent on the phase or power of pre-stimulus EEG activity. This revealed a direct link between 4 Hz EEG phase and power prior to the stimulus and the phase of the rhythmic component of these perceptual weights. Hence, the temporal pattern by which the acoustic information is sampled over time for behavior is directly related to pre-stimulus brain activity in the delta/theta band. These results close a gap in the mechanistic picture linking ongoing delta band activity with their role in shaping the segmentation and perceptual influence of subsequent acoustic information.

Cochlear theta activity oscillates in phase opposition during interaural attention

“…This phenomenon was not only present between the to-be-attended and to-be-ignored ear but also in the same ear between both attention conditions. These results are very similar to that observed in the visual and recently emerging auditory rhythmic sampling literature for both neural activity and behavioral performance, expanding it to the level of the auditory receptor (Fiebelkorn et al, 2013; Ho et al, 2017; Kayser, 2019; Kubetschek & Kayser, 2021; Landau & Fries, 2012; Plöchl et al, 2021; Spyropoulos et al, 2018). Moreover, on the basis of the PLV analysis it seems very unlikely that these effects are driven by eye movement-related activity.…”

“…for simple target detection (Ng et al, 2012); speech perception (Poeppel & Assaneo, 2020); auditory scene exploration (Kayser, 2019)). Albeit early studies failed to provide evidence for the existence of thetarhythmic oscillations in auditory attention (İlhan & VanRullen, 2012;Zoefel & Heil, 2013), numerous recent findings from both cortical and behavioral data speak for their existence (Ho et al, 2017(Ho et al, , 2019Kayser, 2019;Kubetschek & Kayser, 2021;Ng et al, 2012;Plöchl et al, 2021). Interestingly, in bilateral pitch-identification tasks behavioral performance theta-rhythmically oscillates in antiphase between the two ears (Ho et al, 2017;Plöchl et al, 2021).…”

Benchmarking cEEGrid and solid gel-based electrodes to classify inattentional deafness in a flight simulator

“…Ponjavic-Conte et al (2012) reported lower activity in the θ band during auditory attention distraction, but they only inspected the Cz electrode. The low frequencies activity have also been implicated on numerous occasions in auditory perceptual sampling processes (Kubetschek and Kayser, 2021). Finally, we observe both at Cz and Pz electrodes, like at the left grid of the cEEGrid, increased β and θ power spectral variations for misses compared to hits.…”

Vowel speech recognition from rat electroencephalography using long short-term memory neural network

“…Previously, we also found that alpha power was highly activated in bilateral temporal areas after specific sound stimuli that were statistically different in terms of the type of sound [ 48 ]. In addition, the delta and theta bands are known to be associated with shaping the segmentation and perceptual influence of acoustic information [ 93 ]. Although this study is based on animal experimental data, similar speech-related components, as compared to the previous studies on human subjects, were observed in the TFR analyses.…”