Sustained responses and neural synchronization to amplitude and frequency modulation in sound change with age

Herrmann, Björn; Maeß, Burkhard; Johnsrude, Ingrid S.

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2022.108677

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Neural activity becomes entrained by repeating sounds or structure in sounds (Picton et al, 2003; Lakatos et al, 2008; Stefanics et al, 2010; Nozaradan et al, 2011; Thut et al, 2011; Henry and Obleser, 2012; Nozaradan et al, 2012; Lakatos et al, 2013b; ten Oever et al, 2017; Lakatos et al, 2019; Obleser and Kayser, 2019; Herrmann et al, 2023). The peak at 2 Hz in the phase-coherence spectrum of the current study is consistent with entrained activity (Figures 3 and 6).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low-frequency neural activity is thought to reflect fluctuations in neuronal excitability (Bishop, 1933; Adrian and Matthews, 1934; Lakatos et al, 2005) that entrains to periodic repetitions of sounds or sound features (Picton et al, 2003; Stefanics et al, 2010; Herrmann et al, 2013; Herrmann et al, 2023) such that high excitability periods align with occurrences of the sounds or sound features to facilitate their processing (Thut et al, 2011; Henry and Herrmann, 2014; Lakatos et al, 2019; Obleser and Kayser, 2019). Entrainment of neural activity has been observed for noise snippets that are repeated in an ongoing noise (Andrillon et al, 2015; Andrillon et al, 2017; Ringer et al, 2023), providing a potential mechanism that enables the encoding of the noise snippet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perception of sounds and neural entrainment can depend on the timing at which events occur (Large and Jones, 1999; Barnes and Jones, 2000; Jones et al, 2002; Jones et al, 2006; Lange, 2010; Kayser et al, 2015; Herrmann et al, 2016; Morillon et al, 2016; Herrmann et al, 2023). For example, listeners detect auditory patterns made of repeating noise snippets in an ongoing noise better when the noise snippet is repeated at regular compared to irregular intervals (Rajendran et al, 2016; Dauer et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neural responses to repeated noise structure in sounds are invariant to temporal interruptions

Herrmann

2023

Preprint

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The ability to extract meaning from acoustic environments requires sensitivity to repeating sound structure. Yet, how events that repeat are encoded and maintained in the brain and how the brain responds to events that reoccur at later points in time is not well understood. In two electroencephalography experiments, participants listened to a longer, ongoing white noise sound which comprised shorter, frozen noise snippets that repeated at a regular 2-Hz rate. In several conditions, the snippet repetition discontinued for a brief period after which the noise snippet reoccurred. The experiments aimed to answer whether neural activity becomes entrained by the regular repetition of noise snippets, whether entrained neural activity self-sustains during the discontinuation period, and how the brain responds to a reoccurring noise snippet. Results show that neural activity is entrained by the snippet repetition, but there was no evidence for self-sustained neural activity during the discontinuation period. However, the auditory cortex responded to a reoccurring noise snippet with similar magnitude compared to a noise snippet for which the snippet repetition had not been discontinued. This response invariance was observed for different onset times of the reoccurring noise snippet relative to the previously established regularity. The results thus demonstrate that the auditory cortex sensitively responds to, and thus maintains a neural representation of, previously learned acoustic noise independent of temporal interruptions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neural responses to repeated noise structure in sounds are invariant to temporal interruptions

Herrmann

2023

Preprint

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“…Despite participants self-reporting normal hearing, some adults showed clinically relevant hearing loss (see below). Data from all adults were included nevertheless, because a) our sample is representative of community-dwelling adults who vary in their degree of hearing loss despite self-describing their hearing as normal (Moore, 2007;Plack, 2014;Presacco et al, 2016;Herrmann et al, 2018Herrmann et al, , 2023, b) they were able to do the behavioral speech-innoise task, and c) our study seeks to investigate whether eye movements are indicative of listening effort in younger and older adults more generally, rather than investigating differences in people with versus those without hearing loss.…”

Section: Hearing Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupil size and eye movements differently index effort in both younger and older adults

Herrmann,

Ryan

2024

Preprint

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The assessment of mental effort is increasingly relevant in neuro-cognitive and lifespan domains. Pupillometry - the measure of the pupil size - is often used to assess effort but has disadvantages. Analysis of eye movements may provide an alternative, but research has been limited to easy and difficult task demands in younger adults. An effort measure must be sensitive to the whole effort profile, including 'giving-up' effort investment, and capture effort in different age groups. The current study comprised three experiments in which younger and older adults (both sexes) listened to speech masked by background babble at different signal-to-noise ratios associated with easy, difficult, and impossible speech comprehension. We expected individuals to invest little effort for easy and impossible speech ('giving up') but to exert effort for difficult speech. Indeed, pupil size was largest for difficult, but lower for the easy and impossible speech conditions. In contrast, gaze dispersion decreased with increasing speech masking in both age groups. Critically, gaze dispersion during difficult speech returned to levels similar to easy speech after sentence offset, where acoustic stimulation was similar across conditions, whereas gaze dispersion during impossible speech continued to be reduced. These findings show that a reduction in eye movements is not a byproduct of acoustic factors, but instead suggest that neuro-cognitive processes, different from arousal-related systems regulating the pupil size, drive reduced eye movements during high task demands. The current data thus show that effort in one sensory domain (audition) differentially impacts distinct functional properties in another sensory domain (vision).

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“…Neural entrainment to external auditory signals is aberrant ( Goossens et al, 2016 ; Herrmann et al, 2019 ; Purcell et al, 2004 ), and less responsive to top-down attention in older than younger adults ( Henry et al, 2017 ). Moreover, older adults exhibit reduced neural adaptation ( Herrmann et al, 2023 ) and sensory gating ( Brinkmann et al, 2021 ), suggesting an age-related decline in neural inhibition ( Herrmann et al, 2023 ) that leads to a reduced capacity of the auditory system to adapt based on context. Based on the behavioral findings converging on reduced temporal abilities and evidence for impaired neural entrainment in older individuals, we hypothesized that older adults would exhibit stronger hysteresis than younger adults, which should result in smaller estimates of oscillator flexibility.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel method for estimating properties of attentional oscillators reveals an age-related decline in flexibility

Kaya,

Kotz,

Henry

2024

eLife

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Auditory tasks such as understanding speech and making music rely on our ability to track those sounds and adjust our attention based on the temporal cues they contain. An entrainment approach proposes that internal oscillatory mechanisms underlie these abilities by synchronizing to rhythms in the external world. Here, we aimed to understand the factors that facilitate and impede rhythm processing by investigating the interplay between properties of external and internal rhythms. We focused on two key properties of an oscillator: its preferred rate, the default rate at which it oscillates in the absence of input; and flexibility, its ability to adapt to changes in rhythmic context. We hypothesized that flexibility would be diminished with advancing age. Experiment 1 was a two-session duration discrimination paradigm where we developed methods to estimate preferred rate and flexibility and assessed their reliability. Experiment 2 involved a shorter version of this paradigm and a paced tapping task with matched stimulus conditions, in addition to a spontaneous motor tempo (SMT), and two preferred perceptual tempo (PPT) tasks that measured motor and perceptual rate preferences, respectively. Preferred rates, estimated as the stimulus rates with best performance for each individual were showed harmonic relationship across sessions (Experiment 1), and were correlated with SMT (Experiment 2). Interestingly, estimates from motor tasks were slower than those from the perceptual task, and the degree of slowing was consistent for each individual. In order to challenge individuals’ flexibility, we maximized the differences in stimulus rates between consecutive trials in the duration discrimination and paced tapping tasks. As a result, performance in both tasks decreased, and performance on individual trials indicated a gravitation towards the stimulus rate presented on the preceding trial. Critically, flexibility, quantified as individuals’ ability to adapt to faster-than-previous rates, decreased with age. Overall, the findings support that an oscillatory system with domain-specific rate preferences underlies perception and production of rhythms, and that this system loses its ability to flexibly adapt to changes in the external rhythmic context in ageing.

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Sustained responses and neural synchronization to amplitude and frequency modulation in sound change with age

Cited by 13 publications

References 110 publications

Neural responses to repeated noise structure in sounds are invariant to temporal interruptions

Neural responses to repeated noise structure in sounds are invariant to temporal interruptions

Pupil size and eye movements differently index effort in both younger and older adults

A novel method for estimating properties of attentional oscillators reveals an age-related decline in flexibility

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