The role of auditory cortex in the formation of auditory streams

Micheyl, Christophe; Carlyon, Robert P.; Gutschalk, Alexander; Melcher, Jennifer R.; Oxenham, Andrew J.; Rauschecker, Josef P.; Tian, Baofeng; Wilson, Eve

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2007.01.007

Cited by 162 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Our finding that regions in the PT adjacent to, and touching upon, Heschl's gyrus and sulcus discriminate stimuli on a purely perceptual level goes beyond such a limited featurebound processing role. It is, however, in line with single-cell recording studies in monkeys and cats (Micheyl et al, , 2007Nelken and Bar-Yosef, 2008). For instance, object representations have been suggested to be present even as early as in A1 (Bar-Yosef and Nelken, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Auditory Cortex Encodes the Perceptual Interpretation of Ambiguous Sound

Kilian-Hütten¹,

Valente²,

Vroomen³

et al. 2011

J. Neurosci.

114

128

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The confounding of physical stimulus characteristics and perceptual interpretations of stimuli poses a problem for most neuroscientific studies of perception. In the auditory domain, this pertains to the entanglement of acoustics and percept. Traditionally, most study designs have relied on cognitive subtraction logic, which demands the use of one or more comparisons between stimulus types. This does not allow for a differentiation between effects due to acoustic differences (i.e., sensation) and those due to conscious perception. To overcome this problem, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans and pattern-recognition analysis to identify activation patterns that encode the perceptual interpretation of physically identical, ambiguous sounds. We show that it is possible to retrieve the perceptual interpretation of ambiguous phonemes-information that is fully subjective to the listener-from fMRI measurements of brain activity in auditory areas in the superior temporal cortex, most prominently on the posterior bank of the left Heschl's gyrus and sulcus and in the adjoining left planum temporale. These findings suggest that, beyond the basic acoustic analysis of sounds, constructive perceptual processes take place in these relatively early cortical auditory networks. This disagrees with hierarchical models of auditory processing, which generally conceive of these areas as sets of feature detectors, whose task is restricted to the analysis of physical characteristics and the structure of sounds.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Auditory Cortex Encodes the Perceptual Interpretation of Ambiguous Sound

Kilian-Hütten¹,

Valente²,

Vroomen³

et al. 2011

J. Neurosci.

114

128

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“…The present findings indicate a more broadly distributed sensitivity to f 0 that may reflect neuronal sensitivity to the differing temporal properties of tones of different f 0 , rather than a sensitivity to pitch per se. Frequency-selective forward suppression of neural responses in the auditory cortex (or the equivalent in nonmammalian species) has been proposed to play an essential role in auditory streaming (Fishman et al, 2001(Fishman et al, , 2004Kanwal et al, 2003;Klump, 2004, 2005;Micheyl et al, 2005Micheyl et al, , 2007. Specifically, it has been suggested that whether a sequence of pure tones is perceived as a single coherent stream or as two separate streams depends on the degree to which one tone influences the responses to subsequent tones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The physiological studies cited above are generally consistent with these theoretic models. In particular, the animal studies (reviewed by Micheyl et al, 2007) have specifically demonstrated a relationship between streaming and two-tone interactions within frequency-selective neurons of primary auditory cortex.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Cortical Activity during Streaming without Spectral Cues Suggests a General Neural Substrate for Auditory Stream Segregation

et al. 2007

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The brain continuously disentangles competing sounds, such as two people speaking, and assigns them to distinct streams. Neural mechanisms have been proposed for streaming based on gross spectral differences between sounds, but not for streaming based on other nonspectral features. Here, human listeners were presented with sequences of harmonic complex tones that had identical spectral envelopes, and unresolved spectral fine structure, but one of two fundamental frequencies ( f 0 ) and pitches. As the f 0 difference between tones increased, listeners perceived the tones as being segregated into two streams (one stream for each f 0 ) and cortical activity measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalography increased. This trend was seen in primary cortex of Heschl's gyrus and in surrounding nonprimary areas. The results strongly resemble those for pure tones. Both the present and pure tone results may reflect neuronal forward suppression that diminishes as one or more features of successive sounds become increasingly different. We hypothesize that feature-specific forward suppression subserves streaming based on diverse perceptual cues and results in explicit neural representations for auditory streams within auditory cortex.

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“…More recently, it has started to attract the interest of both animal behaviorists and neuroscientists (for reviews, see Carlyon 2004; Micheyl et al 2007b;Snyder and Alain 2007;Bee and Micheyl 2008;Fay 2008;Shamma and Micheyl 2010). In this context, it is desirable for experimenters to have at their disposal measures of auditory streaming that do not rely on reports of perceived segregation (such as "one stream" versus "two stream" judgments).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objective and Subjective Psychophysical Measures of Auditory Stream Integration and Segregation

Micheyl

Oxenham

2010

JARO

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The perceptual organization of sound sequences into auditory streams involves the integration of sounds into one stream and the segregation of sounds into separate streams. "Objective" psychophysical measures of auditory streaming can be obtained using behavioral tasks where performance is facilitated by segregation and hampered by integration, or vice versa. Traditionally, these two types of tasks have been tested in separate studies involving different listeners, procedures, and stimuli. Here, we tested subjects in two complementary temporal-gap discrimination tasks involving similar stimuli and procedures. One task was designed so that performance in it would be facilitated by perceptual integration; the other, so that performance would be facilitated by perceptual segregation. Thresholds were measured in both tasks under a wide range of conditions produced by varying three stimulus parameters known to influence stream formation: frequency separation, tone-presentation rate, and sequence length. In addition to these performancebased measures, subjective judgments of perceived segregation were collected in the same listeners under corresponding stimulus conditions. The patterns of results obtained in the two temporaldiscrimination tasks, and the relationships between thresholds and perceived-segregation judgments, were mostly consistent with the hypothesis that stream segregation helped performance in one task and impaired performance in the other task. The tasks and stimuli described here may prove useful in future behavioral or neurophysiological experiments, which seek to manipulate and measure neural correlates of auditory streaming while minimizing differences between the physical stimuli.

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The role of auditory cortex in the formation of auditory streams

Cited by 162 publications

References 79 publications

Auditory Cortex Encodes the Perceptual Interpretation of Ambiguous Sound

Auditory Cortex Encodes the Perceptual Interpretation of Ambiguous Sound

Human Cortical Activity during Streaming without Spectral Cues Suggests a General Neural Substrate for Auditory Stream Segregation

Objective and Subjective Psychophysical Measures of Auditory Stream Integration and Segregation

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