1
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Aharoni M, Breska A, Müller MM, Schröger E. Mechanisms of sustained perceptual entrainment after stimulus offset. Eur J Neurosci 2024; 59:1047-1060. [PMID: 37150801 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.16032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2021] [Revised: 04/21/2023] [Accepted: 04/22/2023] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
Temporal alignment of neural activity to rhythmic stimulation has been suggested to result from a resonating internal neural oscillator mechanism, but can also be explained by interval-based temporal prediction. Here, we investigate behavioural and brain responses in the post-stimulation period to compare an oscillatory versus an interval-based account. Hickok et al.'s (2015) behavioural paradigm yielded results that relate to a neural oscillatory entrainment mechanism. We adapted the paradigm to an event-related potential (ERP) suitable design: a periodic sequence was followed, in half of the trials, by near-threshold targets embedded in noise. The targets were played in various phases in relation to the preceding sequences' period. Participants had to detect whether targets were played or not, and their EEG was recorded. Both behavioural results and the P300 component of the ERP were not only partially consistent with an oscillatory mechanism but also partially consistent with an interval-based attentional gain mechanism. Instead, data obtained in the post-entrainment period can best be explained with a combination of both mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moran Aharoni
- Edmund and Lilly Safra Center for Brain Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Assaf Breska
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Matthias M Müller
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Erich Schröger
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
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2
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Zoefel B, Kösem A. Neural tracking of continuous acoustics: properties, speech-specificity and open questions. Eur J Neurosci 2024; 59:394-414. [PMID: 38151889 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.16221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Revised: 11/17/2023] [Accepted: 11/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/29/2023]
Abstract
Human speech is a particularly relevant acoustic stimulus for our species, due to its role of information transmission during communication. Speech is inherently a dynamic signal, and a recent line of research focused on neural activity following the temporal structure of speech. We review findings that characterise neural dynamics in the processing of continuous acoustics and that allow us to compare these dynamics with temporal aspects in human speech. We highlight properties and constraints that both neural and speech dynamics have, suggesting that auditory neural systems are optimised to process human speech. We then discuss the speech-specificity of neural dynamics and their potential mechanistic origins and summarise open questions in the field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benedikt Zoefel
- Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition (CerCo), CNRS UMR 5549, Toulouse, France
- Université de Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
| | - Anne Kösem
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (CRNL), INSERM U1028, Bron, France
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3
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L'Hermite S, Zoefel B. Rhythmic Entrainment Echoes in Auditory Perception. J Neurosci 2023; 43:6667-6678. [PMID: 37604689 PMCID: PMC10538584 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0051-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Revised: 03/10/2023] [Accepted: 03/20/2023] [Indexed: 08/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Rhythmic entrainment echoes-rhythmic brain responses that outlast rhythmic stimulation-can demonstrate endogenous neural oscillations entrained by the stimulus rhythm. Here, we tested for such echoes in auditory perception. Participants detected a pure tone target, presented at a variable delay after another pure tone that was rhythmically modulated in amplitude. In four experiments involving 154 human (female and male) participants, we tested (1) which stimulus rate produces the strongest entrainment echo and, inspired by the tonotopical organization of the auditory system and findings in nonhuman primates, (2) whether these are organized according to sound frequency. We found the strongest entrainment echoes after 6 and 8 Hz stimulation, respectively. The best moments for target detection (in phase or antiphase with the preceding rhythm) depended on whether sound frequencies of entraining and target stimuli matched, which is in line with a tonotopical organization. However, for the same experimental condition, best moments were not always consistent across experiments. We provide a speculative explanation for these differences that relies on the notion that neural entrainment and repetition-related adaptation might exercise competing opposite influences on perception. Together, we find rhythmic echoes in auditory perception that seem more complex than those predicted from initial theories of neural entrainment.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Rhythmic entrainment echoes are rhythmic brain responses that are produced by a rhythmic stimulus and persist after its offset. These echoes play an important role for the identification of endogenous brain oscillations, entrained by rhythmic stimulation, and give us insights into whether and how participants predict the timing of events. In four independent experiments involving >150 participants, we examined entrainment echoes in auditory perception. We found that entrainment echoes have a preferred rate (between 6 and 8 Hz) and seem to follow the tonotopic organization of the auditory system. Although speculative, we also found evidence that several, potentially competing processes might interact to produce such echoes, a notion that might need to be considered for future experimental design.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Benedikt Zoefel
- Université de Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier, 31062 Toulouse, France
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Purpan, 31052 Toulouse, France
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4
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Snapiri L, Kaplan Y, Shalev N, Landau AN. Rhythmic modulation of visual discrimination is linked to individuals' spontaneous motor tempo. Eur J Neurosci 2023; 57:646-656. [PMID: 36512369 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2022] [Revised: 11/17/2022] [Accepted: 12/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
The impact of external rhythmic structure on perception has been demonstrated across different modalities and experimental paradigms. However, recent findings emphasize substantial individual differences in rhythm-based perceptual modulation. Here, we examine the link between spontaneous rhythmic preferences, as measured through the motor system, and individual differences in rhythmic modulation of visual discrimination. As a first step, we measure individual rhythmic preferences using the spontaneous tapping task. Then we assess perceptual rhythmic modulation using a visual discrimination task in which targets can appear either in-phase or out-of-phase with a preceding rhythmic stream of visual stimuli. The tempo of the preceding stream was manipulated over different experimental blocks (0.77 Hz, 1.4 Hz, 2 Hz). We find that visual rhythmic stimulation modulates discrimination performance. The modulation is dependent on the tempo of stimulation, with maximal perceptual benefits for the slowest tempo of stimulation (0.77 Hz). Most importantly, the strength of modulation is also linked to individuals' spontaneous motor tempo. Individuals with slower spontaneous tempi show greater rhythmic modulation compared to individuals with faster spontaneous tempi. This finding suggests that different tempi affect the cognitive system with varying levels of efficiency and that self-generated rhythms impact our ability to utilize rhythmic structure in the environment for guiding perception and performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leah Snapiri
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Yael Kaplan
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Nir Shalev
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Ayelet N Landau
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.,Department of Cognitive Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
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5
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Farahbod H, Rogalsky C, Keator LM, Cai J, Pillay SB, Turner K, LaCroix A, Fridriksson J, Binder JR, Middlebrooks JC, Hickok G, Saberi K. Informational Masking in Aging and Brain-lesioned Individuals. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2023; 24:67-79. [PMID: 36471207 PMCID: PMC9971540 DOI: 10.1007/s10162-022-00877-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Auditory stream segregation and informational masking were investigated in brain-lesioned individuals, age-matched controls with no neurological disease, and young college-age students. A psychophysical paradigm known as rhythmic masking release (RMR) was used to examine the ability of participants to identify a change in the rhythmic sequence of 20-ms Gaussian noise bursts presented through headphones and filtered through generalized head-related transfer functions to produce the percept of an externalized auditory image (i.e., a 3D virtual reality sound). The target rhythm was temporally interleaved with a masker sequence comprising similar noise bursts in a manner that resulted in a uniform sequence with no information remaining about the target rhythm when the target and masker were presented from the same location (an impossible task). Spatially separating the target and masker sequences allowed participants to determine if there was a change in the target rhythm midway during its presentation. RMR thresholds were defined as the minimum spatial separation between target and masker sequences that resulted in 70.7% correct-performance level in a single-interval 2-alternative forced-choice adaptive tracking procedure. The main findings were (1) significantly higher RMR thresholds for individuals with brain lesions (especially those with damage to parietal areas) and (2) a left-right spatial asymmetry in performance for lesion (but not control) participants. These findings contribute to a better understanding of spatiotemporal relations in informational masking and the neural bases of auditory scene analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haleh Farahbod
- grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA
| | - Corianne Rogalsky
- grid.215654.10000 0001 2151 2636College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
| | - Lynsey M. Keator
- grid.254567.70000 0000 9075 106XDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
| | - Julia Cai
- grid.215654.10000 0001 2151 2636College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
| | - Sara B. Pillay
- grid.30760.320000 0001 2111 8460Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
| | - Katie Turner
- grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA
| | - Arianna LaCroix
- grid.260024.20000 0004 0627 4571College of Health Sciences, Midwestern University, Glendale, USA
| | - Julius Fridriksson
- grid.254567.70000 0000 9075 106XDepartment of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
| | - Jeffrey R. Binder
- grid.30760.320000 0001 2111 8460Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
| | - John C. Middlebrooks
- grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA ,grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Otolaryngology, University of California, Irvine, USA ,grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Language Science, University of California, Irvine, USA
| | - Gregory Hickok
- grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA ,grid.266093.80000 0001 0668 7243Department of Language Science, University of California, Irvine, USA
| | - Kourosh Saberi
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA.
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6
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Forward entrainment: Psychophysics, neural correlates, and function. Psychon Bull Rev 2022:10.3758/s13423-022-02220-y. [DOI: 10.3758/s13423-022-02220-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022]
Abstract
AbstractWe define forward entrainment as that part of behavioral or neural entrainment that outlasts the entraining stimulus. In this review, we examine conditions under which one may optimally observe forward entrainment. In Part 1, we review and evaluate studies that have observed forward entrainment using a variety of psychophysical methods (detection, discrimination, and reaction times), different target stimuli (tones, noise, and gaps), different entraining sequences (sinusoidal, rectangular, or sawtooth waveforms), a variety of physiological measures (MEG, EEG, ECoG, CSD), in different modalities (auditory and visual), across modalities (audiovisual and auditory-motor), and in different species. In Part 2, we describe those experimental conditions that place constraints on the magnitude of forward entrainment, including an evaluation of the effects of signal uncertainty and attention, temporal envelope complexity, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), rhythmic rate, prior experience, and intersubject variability. In Part 3 we theorize on potential mechanisms and propose that forward entrainment may instantiate a dynamic auditory afterimage that lasts a fraction of a second to minimize prediction error in signal processing.
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7
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The rediscovered motor-related area 55b emerges as a core hub of music perception. Commun Biol 2022; 5:1104. [PMID: 36257973 PMCID: PMC9579133 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-04009-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Accepted: 09/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Passive listening to music, without sound production or evident movement, is long known to activate motor control regions. Nevertheless, the exact neuroanatomical correlates of the auditory-motor association and its underlying neural mechanisms have not been fully determined. Here, based on a NeuroSynth meta-analysis and three original fMRI paradigms of music perception, we show that the long-ignored pre-motor region, area 55b, an anatomically unique and functionally intriguing region, is a core hub of music perception. Moreover, results of a brain-behavior correlation analysis implicate neural entrainment as the underlying mechanism of area 55b’s contribution to music perception. In view of the current results and prior literature, area 55b is proposed as a keystone of sensorimotor integration, a fundamental brain machinery underlying simple to hierarchically complex behaviors. Refining the neuroanatomical and physiological understanding of sensorimotor integration is expected to have a major impact on various fields, from brain disorders to artificial general intelligence. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data acquired during passive listening to music suggest that pre-motor area 55b acts as a core hub of music processing in humans.
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8
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Saberi K, Hickok G. Confirming an antiphasic bicyclic pattern of forward entrainment in signal detection: A reanalysis of Sun et al. (2021). Eur J Neurosci 2022; 56:5274-5286. [PMID: 36057434 PMCID: PMC9826078 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15816] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 08/27/2022] [Accepted: 08/31/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
Forward entrainment refers to that part of the entrainment process that persists after termination of an entraining stimulus. Hickok et al. (2015) reported forward entrainment in signal detection that lasted for two post-stimulus cycles. In a recent paper, Sun et al. (2021) reported new data which suggested an absence of entrainment effects (Eur. J. Neurosci, 1-18, doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15367). Here we show that when Sun et al.'s data are analysed using unbiased detection-theoretic measures, a clear antiphasic bicyclic pattern of entrainment is observed. We further show that the measure of entrainment strength used by Sun et al., the normalized Fourier transform of performance curves, is not only erroneously calculated but is also unreliable in estimating entrainment strength due to signal-processing artifacts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kourosh Saberi
- Department of Cognitive SciencesUniversity of California, IrvineIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Gregory Hickok
- Department of Cognitive SciencesUniversity of California, IrvineIrvineCaliforniaUSA,Department of Language ScienceUniversity of California, IrvineIrvineCaliforniaUSA
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9
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Saberi K, Hickok G. A critical analysis of Lin et al.'s (2021) failure to observe forward entrainment in pitch discrimination. Eur J Neurosci 2022; 56:5191-5200. [PMID: 35857282 PMCID: PMC9804316 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15778] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Revised: 06/30/2022] [Accepted: 07/14/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Forward entrainment refers to that part of the entrainment process that outlasts the entraining stimulus. Several studies have demonstrated psychophysical forward entrainment in a pitch-discrimination task. In a recent paper, Lin et al. (2021) challenged these findings by demonstrating that a sequence of 4 entraining pure tones does not affect the ability to determine whether a frequency modulated pulse, presented after termination of the entraining sequence, has swept up or down in frequency. They concluded that rhythmic sequences do not facilitate pitch discrimination. Here, we describe several methodological and stimulus design flaws in Lin et al.'s study that may explain their failure to observe forward entrainment in pitch discrimination.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kourosh Saberi
- Department of Cognitive SciencesUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Gregory Hickok
- Department of Cognitive SciencesUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA,Department of Language ScienceUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
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10
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Effects of temporally regular versus irregular distractors on goal-directed cognition and behavior. Sci Rep 2022; 12:10020. [PMID: 35705589 PMCID: PMC9200732 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13211-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2022] [Accepted: 05/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Human environments comprise plenty of task-irrelevant sensory inputs, which are potentially distracting. Auditory distractors often possess an inherent temporal structure. However, it is largely unknown whether and how the temporal regularity of distractors interferes with goal-directed cognitive processes, such as working memory. Here, we tested a total sample of N = 90 participants across four working memory tasks with sequences of temporally regular versus irregular distractors. Temporal irregularity was operationalized by a final tone onset time that violated an otherwise regular tone sequence (Experiment 1), by a sequence of tones with irregular onset-to-onset delays (Experiment 2), and by sequences of speech items with irregular onset-to-onset delays (Experiments 3 and 4). Across all experiments, temporal regularity of distractors did not modulate participants’ primary performance metric, that is, accuracy in recalling items from working memory. Instead, temporal regularity of distractors modulated secondary performance metrics: for regular versus irregular distractors, recall of the first item from memory was faster (Experiment 3) and the response bias was more conservative (Experiment 4). Taken together, the present results provide evidence that the temporal regularity of task-irrelevant input does not inevitably affect the precision of memory representations (reflected in the primary performance metric accuracy) but rather the response behavior (reflected in secondary performance metrics like response speed and bias). Our findings emphasize that a comprehensive understanding of auditory distraction requires that existing models of attention include often-neglected secondary performance metrics to understand how different features of auditory distraction reach awareness and impact cognition and behavior.
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11
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Lin WM, Oetringer DA, Bakker‐Marshall I, Emmerzaal J, Wilsch A, ElShafei HA, Rassi E, Haegens S. No behavioural evidence for rhythmic facilitation of perceptual discrimination. Eur J Neurosci 2022. [PMID: 33772897 PMCID: PMC9540985 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15208 10.1101/2020.12.10.418947] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/04/2022]
Abstract
It has been hypothesized that internal oscillations can synchronize (i.e., entrain) to external environmental rhythms, thereby facilitating perception and behaviour. To date, evidence for the link between the phase of neural oscillations and behaviour has been scarce and contradictory; moreover, it remains an open question whether the brain can use this tentative mechanism for active temporal prediction. In our present study, we conducted a series of auditory pitch discrimination tasks with 181 healthy participants in an effort to shed light on the proposed behavioural benefits of rhythmic cueing and entrainment. In the three versions of our task, we observed no perceptual benefit of purported entrainment: targets occurring in-phase with a rhythmic cue provided no perceptual benefits in terms of discrimination accuracy or reaction time when compared with targets occurring out-of-phase or targets occurring randomly, nor did we find performance differences for targets preceded by rhythmic versus random cues. However, we found a surprising effect of cueing frequency on reaction time, in which participants showed faster responses to cue rhythms presented at higher frequencies. We therefore provide no evidence of entrainment, but instead a tentative effect of covert active sensing in which a faster external rhythm leads to a faster communication rate between motor and sensory cortices, allowing for sensory inputs to be sampled earlier in time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wy Ming Lin
- Graduate Training Centre of NeuroscienceUniversity of TübingenTübingenGermany,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Djamari A. Oetringer
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Iske Bakker‐Marshall
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Jill Emmerzaal
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Anna Wilsch
- Department of PsychologyNew York UniversityNew YorkNYUSA
| | - Hesham A. ElShafei
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Elie Rassi
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands
| | - Saskia Haegens
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenThe Netherlands,Department of PsychiatryColumbia UniversityNew YorkNYUSA,Division of Systems NeuroscienceNew York State Psychiatric InstituteNew YorkNYUSA
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12
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Sun Y, Michalareas G, Poeppel D. The impact of phase entrainment on auditory detection is highly variable: Revisiting a key finding. Eur J Neurosci 2021; 55:3373-3390. [PMID: 34155728 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15367] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2020] [Revised: 06/13/2021] [Accepted: 06/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Ample evidence shows that the human brain carefully tracks acoustic temporal regularities in the input, perhaps by entraining cortical neural oscillations to the rate of the stimulation. To what extent the entrained oscillatory activity influences processing of upcoming auditory events remains debated. Here, we revisit a critical finding from Hickok et al. (2015) that demonstrated a clear impact of auditory entrainment on subsequent auditory detection. Participants were asked to detect tones embedded in stationary noise, following a noise that was amplitude modulated at 3 Hz. Tonal targets occurred at various phases relative to the preceding noise modulation. The original study (N = 5) showed that the detectability of the tones (presented at near-threshold intensity) fluctuated cyclically at the same rate as the preceding noise modulation. We conducted an exact replication of the original paradigm (N = 23) and a conceptual replication using a shorter experimental procedure (N = 24). Neither experiment revealed significant entrainment effects at the group level. A restricted analysis on the subset of participants (36%) who did show the entrainment effect revealed no consistent phase alignment between detection facilitation and the preceding rhythmic modulation. Interestingly, both experiments showed group-wide presence of a non-cyclic behavioural pattern, wherein participants' detection of the tonal targets was lower at early and late time points of the target period. The two experiments highlight both the sensitivity of the task to elicit oscillatory entrainment and the striking individual variability in performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue Sun
- Department of Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Georgios Michalareas
- Department of Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - David Poeppel
- Department of Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany.,Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.,Max Planck-NYU Center for Language, Music, and Emotion (CLaME), New York, New York, USA.,Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, Frankfurt, Germany
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13
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Delta/Theta band EEG activity shapes the rhythmic perceptual sampling of auditory scenes. Sci Rep 2021; 11:2370. [PMID: 33504860 PMCID: PMC7840678 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82008-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2020] [Accepted: 01/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
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.
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