The Precedence Effect in Sound Localization

Wallach, Hans; Newman, Edwin B.; Rosenzweig, Mark R.

doi:10.2307/1418275

Cited by 509 publications

(216 citation statements)

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“…The precedence effect was discovered in human psychophysical studies and is caused by a mechanism that suppresses the directional information carried by echoes. It explains how, in a reverberant room, a listener can hear only a single sound and not the sequence of separate sounds produced by the echoes reflected from the various surfaces and objects in the room (Wallach et al, 1949;Blauert, 1983;Zurek, 1987;Litovsky et al, 1999).…”

Section: The Persistent Inhibition In the Dnll May Have Consequences mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reversible Inactivation of the Dorsal Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus Reveals Its Role in the Processing of Multiple Sound Sources in the Inferior Colliculus of Bats

2001

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Neurons in the inferior colliculus (IC) that are excited by one ear and inhibited by the other [excitatory-inhibitory (EI) neurons] can code interaural intensity disparities (IIDs), the cues animals use to localize high frequencies. Although EI properties are first formed in a lower nucleus and imposed on some IC cells via an excitatory projection, many other EI neurons are formed de novo in the IC. By reversibly inactivating the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (DNLL) in Mexican free-tailed bats with kynurenic acid, we show that the EI properties of many IC cells are formed de novo via an inhibitory projection from the DNLL on the opposite side. We also show that signals excitatory to the IC evoke an inhibition in the opposite DNLL that persists for tens of milliseconds after the signal has ended. During that period, strongly suppressed EI cells in the IC are deprived of inhibition from the DNLL and respond to binaural signals as weakly inhibited or monaural cells. By relieving inhibition at the IC, we show that an initial binaural signal essentially reconfigures the circuit and thereby allows IC cells to respond to trailing binaural signals that were inhibitory when presented alone. Thus, DNLL innervation creates a property in the IC that is not possessed by lower neurons or by collicular EI neurons that are not innervated by the DNLL. That property is a change in responsiveness to binaural signals, a change dependent on the reception of an earlier sound. These features suggest that the circuitry linking the DNLL with the opposite central nucleus of the IC is important for the processing of IIDs that change over time, such as the IIDs generated by moving stimuli or by multiple sound sources that emanate from different regions of space. Key words: GABA; persistent inhibition; precedence effect; inferior colliculus; sound localization; dorsal nucleus of lateral lemniscusThe projections from the vast majority of lower auditory nuclei converge at a common destination in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICc) (for review, see Aitkin, 1986;Oliver and Huerta, 1992). This large convergence of inputs suggests that substantial transformations occur in the ICc; yet the response properties of ICc neurons appear to be similar to those of the lower nuclei from which they receive their innervation. An example is excitatory-inhibitory (EI) neurons in the ICc, neurons that are excited by one ear and inhibited by the other ear. These neurons are sensitive to interaural intensity disparities (IIDs), the cues animals use to localize high-frequency sounds (Erulkar, 1972;Mills, 1972). EI neurons are initially formed in the lateral superior olive (LSO) (Boudreau and Tsuchitani, 1968;Finlayson and Caspary, 1991). They are also the dominant type in the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (DNLL), a nucleus the neurons of which are almost exclusively GABAergic (Brugge et al., 1970;Adams and Mugniani, 1984;Covey, 1993; Yang and Pollak, 1994a,b,c;Winer et al., 1995). The DNLL, like the ICc, is one of the principa...

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Section: The Persistent Inhibition In the Dnll May Have Consequences mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Precedence is classically demonstrated with two speakers, separated along the same plane in space (Wallach et al, 1949;Litovsky et al, 1999). The speakers emit identical sounds, but the sound from one speaker is presented a few milliseconds before the sound from the other speaker.…”

Section: The Persistent Inhibition In the Dnll May Have Consequences mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reversible Inactivation of the Dorsal Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus Reveals Its Role in the Processing of Multiple Sound Sources in the Inferior Colliculus of Bats

2001

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“…The precedence effect was first described by Wallach et al (1949). Since then, many researchers have shed light on the relationship between the information which is provided by the lead and the lag, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural correlates of the precedence effect in auditory evoked potentials

2005

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The precedence effect in subjective localization tasks reflects the dominance of directional information of a direct sound (lead) over the information provided by one or several reflections (lags) for short delays. By collecting data of both psychoacoustical measurements and auditory evoked potentials the current study aims at neurophysiological correlates for the precedence effect in humans. In order to investigate whether the stimulus features or the perception of the stimulus is reflected on the ascending stages of the human auditory pathway, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) as well as cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) using double click-pairs were recorded. Potentials were related to the results of the psychoacoustical data.ABRs to double click-pairs with lead-lag delays from 0 to 20 ms and interaural time differences (ITDs) in the lag click of 0 and 300 ls show an emerging second wave V for lead-lag delays larger than 2 ms. The amplitudes of the first and second wave V are the same for a lead-lag delay of about 5 ms. For the lag-ITD stimuli the latency of the second wave V was prolonged by approximately ITD/2 compared to the stimuli without lag-ITD. As the amplitudes of the second wave V were not decreased for a lead-lag delay around 5 ms as could be expected from psychoacoustical measurements of the precedence effect, ABRs reflect stimulus features rather than the perceptive qualities of the stimulus.The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the CAEP for double click-pairs was determined using a diotic standard and a deviant with an ITD of 800 ls in the lag click. The comparison between the MMN components and the psychoacoustical data shows that the MMN is related to the perception of the stimulus, i.e., to the precedence effect.Generally, the findings of the present study suggest that the precedence effect is not a result of a poor sensitivity of the peripheral bottom-up processing. Rather, the precedence effect seems to be reflected by the MMN, i.e., cognitive processes on higher stages of the auditory pathway.

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“…The effect was studied systematically by Haas (1951) for the case of one echo. Measurements by Wallach et al (1949) indicated that this effect also held when presenting the signals by means of earphones. Tollin and Henning (1998) recently measured the time course of the precedence effect in terms of the lateralizability of the sound produced when dichotic clicks were either preceded or followed by another diotic click.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effects of the preceding and following tone on laterality threshold.

Ebata

Takahashi

Ishiodori

et al. 2001

Acoust. Sci. & Tech.

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In this paper, the thresholds of detection and laterality are explored using a tone signal with interaural time difference (ITD) and a diotic tone masker in the three stimulus configurations: in simultaneous, forward and backward masking paradigms. The inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) between the signal and the masker are 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 ms. The results show that both of the thresholds decrease with increasing ISI. Characteristics of the laterality thresholds is similar to the well-known pattern of temporal masking, which means that we measured the temporal masking pattern on laterality. As the frequency difference between the tonal masker and the signal tone becomes smaller, the detection threshold increases due to masking. The laterality thresholds with an interferer, however, are higher than those without an interferer at a wider frequency range around the frequency of an interfering tone.

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The Precedence Effect in Sound Localization

Cited by 509 publications

References 0 publications

Reversible Inactivation of the Dorsal Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus Reveals Its Role in the Processing of Multiple Sound Sources in the Inferior Colliculus of Bats

Reversible Inactivation of the Dorsal Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus Reveals Its Role in the Processing of Multiple Sound Sources in the Inferior Colliculus of Bats

Neural correlates of the precedence effect in auditory evoked potentials

Effects of the preceding and following tone on laterality threshold.

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