Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition

Reports findings from multiple neuroscientific studies on the impact of arts training on the enhancement of other cognitive capacities, such as reading acquisition, sequence learning, geometrical reasoning, and memory

Attention, Awareness, and the Perception of Auditory Scenes

Auditory perception and cognition entails both low-level and high-level processes, which are likely to interact with each other to create our rich conscious experience of soundscapes. Recent research that we review has revealed numerous influences of high-level factors, such as attention, intention, and prior experience, on conscious auditory perception. And recently, studies have shown that auditory scene analysis tasks can exhibit multistability in a manner very similar to ambiguous visual stimuli, presenting a unique opportunity to study neural correlates of auditory awareness and the extent to which mechanisms of perception are shared across sensory modalities. Research has also led to a growing number of techniques through which auditory perception can be manipulated and even completely suppressed. Such findings have important consequences for our understanding of the mechanisms of perception and also should allow scientists to precisely distinguish the influences of different higher-level influences

Auditory multistability and neurotransmitter concentrations in the human brain

Multistability in perception is a powerful tool for investigating sensory–perceptual transformations, because it produces dissociations between sensory inputs and subjective experience. Spontaneous switching between different perceptual objects occurs during prolonged listening to a sound sequence of tone triplets or repeated words (termed auditory streaming and verbal transformations, respectively). We used these examples of auditory multistability to examine to what extent neurochemical and cognitive factors influence the observed idiosyncratic patterns of switching between perceptual objects. The concentrations of glutamate–glutamine (Glx) and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in brain regions were measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy, while personality traits and executive functions were assessed using questionnaires and response inhibition tasks. Idiosyncratic patterns of perceptual switching in the two multistable stimulus configurations were identified using a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis. Intriguingly, although switching patterns within each individual differed between auditory streaming and verbal transformations, similar MDS dimensions were extracted separately from the two datasets. Individual switching patterns were significantly correlated with Glx and GABA concentrations in auditory cortex and inferior frontal cortex but not with the personality traits and executive functions. Our results suggest that auditory perceptual organization depends on the balance between neural excitation and inhibition in different brain regions. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis'

Evidence for Two Mechanisms to Account for the Speech to Song Illusion, the Verbal Transformation Effect, and the Sound to Music Illusion

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Auditory Perception & Cognition on 25 Jul 2023, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/25742442.2023.2240223.Introduction Five studies examined the speech to song illusion, the verbal transformation effect, and the sound to music illusion in order to determine if they were distinct phenomena and to assess if they could be accounted for by a single perceptual/cognitive mechanism. Methods In Study 1, word lists varying in length from 1 word (as often used to study the verbal transformation effect) to 4 words (as often used to study the speech to song illusion) were presented to participants for 4 minutes to investigate the percepts that were elicited. In Study 2 participants were asked to indicate YES/NO if they experienced the speech to song illusion when listening to word-lists modified by a vocoder. In Studies 3–5 participants were asked to click a button as soon as the shift in percept occurred from speech (or sound) to a music-like percept to assess the time-course of the speech to song (or sound to music) illusion. Results Study 1 shows that the verbal transformation effect and the speech to song illusion elicit similar percepts. In Study 2 participants indicated that the speech-like stimuli elicited the speech to song illusion more than the noise-like stimuli. In Studies 3–5 similar time-courses were observed for the speech to song illusion and the sound to music illusion. Discussion Previous, single-mechanism accounts of the speech to song illusion are discussed, but none of them adequately account for all of the results presented here. A new model is proposed that appeals to both a perceptual/“lower-level” mechanism and a cognitive/“higher-level” mechanism

A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience

When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as many of them have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Either consciousness is to be explained in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys; or it is to be explained in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, while there may be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research which purports to show that the explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the other, by the classical computational theory of mind – the theory that takes human cognition to be a species of symbol manipulation. But two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the experimental methodologies employed in the dissociation studies – so critical, in fact, it’s no longer reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory of consciousness. In this paper we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists in the explicit representation of information in neurally realized PDP networks. This hypothesis leads us to re-assess some common wisdom about consciousness, but, we will argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways

More than skin deep: body representation beyond primary somatosensory cortex

The neural circuits underlying initial sensory processing of somatic information are relatively well understood. In contrast, the processes that go beyond primary somatosensation to create more abstract representations related to the body are less clear. In this review, we focus on two classes of higher-order processing beyond somatosensation. Somatoperception refers to the process of perceiving the body itself, and particularly of ensuring somatic perceptual constancy. We review three key elements of somatoperception: (a) remapping information from the body surface into an egocentric reference frame (b) exteroceptive perception of objects in the external world through their contact with the body and (c) interoceptive percepts about the nature and state of the body itself. Somatorepresentation, in contrast, refers to the essentially cognitive process of constructing semantic knowledge and attitudes about the body, including: (d) lexical-semantic knowledge about bodies generally and one’s own body specifically, (e) configural knowledge about the structure of bodies, (f) emotions and attitudes directed towards one’s own body, and (g) the link between physical body and psychological self. We review a wide range of neuropsychological, neuroimaging and neurophysiological data to explore the dissociation between these different aspects of higher somatosensory function

Interior maps in posterior pareital cortex

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC), historically believed to be a sensory structure, is now viewed as an area important for sensory-motor integration. Among its functions is the forming of intentions, that is, high-level cognitive plans for movement. There is a map of intentions within the PPC, with different subregions dedicated to the planning of eye movements, reaching movements, and grasping movements. These areas appear to be specialized for the multisensory integration and coordinate transformations required to convert sensory input to motor output. In several subregions of the PPC, these operations are facilitated by the use of a common distributed space representation that is independent of both sensory input and motor output. Attention and learning effects are also evident in the PPC. However, these effects may be general to cortex and operate in the PPC in the context of sensory-motor transformations

Auditory event-related potentials associated with perceptual reversals of bistable pitch motion

Previous event-related potential (ERP) experiments have consistently identified two components associated with perceptual transitions of bistable visual stimuli, the reversal negativity (RN) and the late positive complex (LPC). The RN (~200ms post-stimulus, bilateral occipital-parietal distribution) is thought to reflect transitions between neural representations that form the moment-to-moment contents of conscious perception, while the LPC (~400ms, central-parietal) is considered an index of post-perceptual processing related to accessing and reporting one’s percept. To explore the generality of these components across sensory modalities, the present experiment utilized a novel bistable auditory stimulus. Pairs of complex tones with ambiguous pitch relationships were presented sequentially while subjects reported whether they perceived the tone pairs as ascending or descending in pitch. ERPs elicited by the tones were compared according to whether perceived pitch motion changed direction or remained the same across successive trials. An auditory RN component (aRN) was evident at ~170ms post-stimulus over bilateral fronto-central scalp locations. An auditory LPC component (aLPC) was evident at subsequent latencies (~350ms, fronto-central distribution). These two components may be auditory analogs of the visual RN and LPC, suggesting functionally equivalent but anatomically distinct processes in auditory versus visual bistable perception

Human central auditory plasticity: A review of functional nearâ infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure cochlear implant performance and tinnitus perception

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146915/1/lio2185_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146915/2/lio2185.pd

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Sweet Music of Ambiguity

In this review paper aimed at the non-specialist, we explore the use that neuroscientists and musicians have made of perceptual illusions based on ambiguity. The pivotal issue is auditory scene analysis (ASA), or what enables us to make sense of complex acoustic mixtures in order to follow, for instance, a single melody in the midst of an orchestra. In general, ASA uncovers the most likely physical causes that account for the waveform collected at the ears. However, the acoustical problem is ill-posed and it must be solved from noisy sensory input. Recently, the neural mechanisms implicated in the transformation of ambiguous sensory information into coherent auditory scenes have been investigated using so-called bistability illusions (where an unchanging ambiguous stimulus evokes a succession of distinct percepts in the mind of the listener). After reviewing some of those studies, we turn to music, which arguably provides some of the most complex acoustic scenes that a human listener will ever encounter. Interestingly, musicians will not always aim at making each physical source intelligible, but rather express one or more melodic lines with a small or large number of instruments. By means of a few musical illustrations and by using a computational model inspired by neuro-physiological principles, we suggest that this relies on a detailed (if perhaps implicit) knowledge of the rules of ASA and of its inherent ambiguity. We then put forward the opinion that some degree perceptual ambiguity may participate in our appreciation of music