Is predictability salient? A study of attentional capture by auditory patterns

Southwell, Rosy; Anna, Baumann; Cécile, Gal; Barascud, Nicolas; Friston, Karl J.; Chait, Maria

doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0105

Cited by 112 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…This model explored the role of predictive coding and theories of auditory deviance detection as possible underlying mechanisms determining auditory salience in the brain [41–43]. This approach puts great emphasis on the role of processing events over time and shaping neural responses of current sounds based on their preceding context.…”

Section: Models Of Auditory Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling auditory attention

Kaya¹,

Elhilali²

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

103

101

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Sounds in everyday life seldom appear in isolation. Both humans and machines are constantly flooded with a cacophony of sounds that need to be sorted through and scoured for relevant information—a phenomenon referred to as the ‘cocktail party problem’. A key component in parsing acoustic scenes is the role of attention, which mediates perception and behaviour by focusing both sensory and cognitive resources on pertinent information in the stimulus space. The current article provides a review of modelling studies of auditory attention. The review highlights how the term attention refers to a multitude of behavioural and cognitive processes that can shape sensory processing. Attention can be modulated by ‘bottom-up’ sensory-driven factors, as well as ‘top-down’ task-specific goals, expectations and learned schemas. Essentially, it acts as a selection process or processes that focus both sensory and cognitive resources on the most relevant events in the soundscape; with relevance being dictated by the stimulus itself (e.g. a loud explosion) or by a task at hand (e.g. listen to announcements in a busy airport). Recent computational models of auditory attention provide key insights into its role in facilitating perception in cluttered auditory scenes.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.

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Section: Models Of Auditory Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling auditory attention

Kaya¹,

Elhilali²

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

103

101

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“…Along with prior information (or schemas, as Bregman termed them), these features give the brain information about the sound sources present in the environment, and in complex settings, these grouping processes (collectively termed auditory scene analysis) allow a listener to selectively attend one source or another (see also [82,83]). It is here that conscious perception of sound might provide considerable benefit to the organism or system possessing it, as the deployment of volitional attention is possibly enhanced by consciousness [32,62,64] or (equivalently) the processes that give rise to it.…”

Section: (A) Environmental Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A roadmap for the study of conscious audition and its neural basis

Dykstra

Cariani

Gutschalk

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Auditory and visual scene analysis'. Subject Areas: cognition, neuroscience, behaviourKeywords: audition, auditory scene analysis, conscious perception, neural correlates of consciousness, perceptual awareness Author for correspondence: Andrew R. Dykstra e-mail: andrew.dykstra@med.uni-heidelberg.de A roadmap for the study of conscious audition and its neural basis Andrew R. Dykstra 1 , Peter A. Cariani 2 and Alexander Gutschalk 1 1 Department of Neurology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2 Hearing Research Center, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA ARD, 0000-0001-8075-6374How and which aspects of neural activity give rise to subjective perceptual experience-i.e. conscious perception-is a fundamental question of neuroscience. To date, the vast majority of work concerning this question has come from vision, raising the issue of generalizability of prominent resulting theories. However, recent work has begun to shed light on the neural processes subserving conscious perception in other modalities, particularly audition. Here, we outline a roadmap for the future study of conscious auditory perception and its neural basis, paying particular attention to how conscious perception emerges (and of which elements or groups of elements) in complex auditory scenes. We begin by discussing the functional role of the auditory system, particularly as it pertains to conscious perception. Next, we ask: what are the phenomena that need to be explained by a theory of conscious auditory perception? After surveying the available literature for candidate neural correlates, we end by considering the implications that such results have for a general theory of conscious perception as well as prominent outstanding questions and what approaches/techniques can best be used to address them.This article is part of the themed issue 'Auditory and visual scene analysis'. IntroductionHow subjective perceptual experience-i.e. conscious perception-emerges from patterns of brain activity is a fundamental question of modern neuroscience. Although relationships between neural activity and conscious perception have been pondered since the beginning of the mind-brain sciences [1][2][3][4][5][6], many have viewed the problem as scientifically intractable. However, employing increasingly powerful methods [7], recent years have seen a dramatic increase in studies pursuing the so-called neural correlates of consciousness, or NCC [8], defined as the 'the minimal set of neural events jointly sufficient for a specific conscious experience' [9] (e.g. the phenomenal experience of hearing a sound). This definition, in contrast with others that distinguish between the NCC and the NCCC (neural correlates of the contents of consciousness), subsumes both the 'preconditions' and content-specific processes associated with specific conscious percepts [10], acknowledging that all conscious experiences have content (though varying in richness [11,12], an idea also underscored by early auditory selective-a...

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“…A different direction favored in other bodies of work focuses on the "distraction" effect induced by auditory salience of sound events or patterns. 20,21 This approach takes into account effects of attentional load through the use of competing tasks, but it has yet to provide a broad canvassing of the acoustic features that render certain sound events more salient than others.…”

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confidence: 99%

Auditory salience using natural soundscapes

Huang

Elhilali

2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Salience describes the phenomenon by which an object stands out from a scene. While its underlying processes are extensively studied in vision, mechanisms of auditory salience remain largely unknown. Previous studies have used well-controlled auditory scenes to shed light on some of the acoustic attributes that drive the salience of sound events. Unfortunately, the use of constrained stimuli in addition to a lack of well-established benchmarks of salience judgments hampers the development of comprehensive theories of sensory-driven auditory attention. The present study explores auditory salience in a set of dynamic natural scenes. A behavioral measure of salience is collected by having human volunteers listen to two concurrent scenes and indicate continuously which one attracts their attention. By using natural scenes, the study takes a data-driven rather than experimenter-driven approach to exploring the parameters of auditory salience. The findings indicate that the space of auditory salience is multidimensional (spanning loudness, pitch, spectral shape, as well as other acoustic attributes), nonlinear and highly context-dependent. Importantly, the results indicate that contextual information about the entire scene over both short and long scales needs to be considered in order to properly account for perceptual judgments of salience.

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Is predictability salient? A study of attentional capture by auditory patterns

Cited by 112 publications

References 85 publications

Modelling auditory attention

Modelling auditory attention

A roadmap for the study of conscious audition and its neural basis

Auditory salience using natural soundscapes

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