The role of temporal coherence and temporal predictability in the build-up of auditory grouping

Sollini, Joseph; Poole, Katarina C.; Blauth-Muszkowski, Dominic; Bizley, Jennifer K.

Abstract

The cochlea decomposes sounds into separate frequency channels, from which the auditory brain must reconstruct the auditory scene. To do this the auditory system must make decisions about which frequency information should be grouped together, and which should remain distinct. Two key cues for grouping are temporal coherence, resulting from coherent changes in power across frequency, and temporal predictability, resulting from regular or predictable changes over time. To test how these cues contribute to the construction of a sound scene we present listeners with a range of precursor sounds, which act to prime the auditory system by providing information about each sounds structure, followed by a fixed masker in which participants were required to detect the presence of an embedded tone. By manipulating temporal coherence and/or temporal predictability in the precursor we assess how prior sound exposure influences subsequent auditory grouping. In Experiment 1, we measure the contribution of temporal predictability by presenting temporally regular or jittered precursors, and temporal coherence by using either narrow or broadband sounds, demonstrating that both independently contribute to masking/unmasking. In Experiment 2, we measure the relative impact of temporal coherence and temporal predictability and ask whether the influence of each in the precursor signifies an enhancement or interference of unmasking. We observed that interfering precursors produced the largest changes to thresholds.

Citation

Sollini, J., Poole, K. C., Blauth-Muszkowski, D., & Bizley, J. K. (2022). The role of temporal coherence and temporal predictability in the build-up of auditory grouping. Scientific Reports, 12, Article 14493. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18583-0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 16, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 25, 2022
• Publication Date: Aug 25, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 15, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 16, 2022
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Article Number: 14493
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18583-0
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/10366290
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18583-0