‘Normal’ hearing thresholds and fundamental auditory grouping processes predict difficulties with speech-in-noise perception

Understanding speech when background noise is present is a critical everyday task that varies widely among people. A key challenge is to understand why some people struggle with speech-in-noise perception, despite having clinically normal hearing. Here, we developed new figure-ground tests that require participants to extract a coherent tone pattern from a stochastic background of tones. These tests dissociated variability in speech-in-noise perception related to mechanisms for detecting static (same-frequency) patterns and those for tracking patterns that change frequency over time. In addition, elevated hearing thresholds that are widely considered to be ‘normal’ explained significant variance in speech-in-noise perception, independent of figure-ground perception. Overall, our results demonstrate that successful speech-in-noise perception is related to audiometric thresholds, fundamental grouping of static acoustic patterns, and tracking of acoustic sources that change in frequency. Crucially, speech-in-noise deficits are better assessed by measuring central (grouping) processes alongside audiometric thresholds

Brain Bases of Working Memory for Time Intervals in Rhythmic Sequences

Perception of auditory time intervals is critical for accurate comprehension of natural sounds like speech and music. However, the neural substrates and mechanisms underlying the representation of time intervals in working memory are poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the brain bases of working memory for time intervals in rhythmic sequences using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used a novel behavioral paradigm to investigate time-interval representation in working memory as a function of the temporal jitter and memory load of the sequences containing those time intervals. Human participants were presented with a sequence of intervals and required to reproduce the duration of a particular probed interval. We found that perceptual timing areas including the cerebellum and the striatum were more or less active as a function of increasing and decreasing jitter of the intervals held in working memory respectively whilst the activity of the inferior parietal cortex is modulated as a function of memory load. Additionally, we also analyzed structural correlations between gray and white matter density and behavior and found significant correlations in the cerebellum and the striatum, mirroring the functional results. Our data demonstrate neural substrates of working memory for time intervals and suggest that the cerebellum and the striatum represent core areas for representing temporal information in working memory

BMC Neuroscience

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The contribution of short-term memory for sound features to speech-in-noise perception and cognition

\ua9 2024 The Author(s)Speech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a fundamental ability that declines with aging, as does general cognition. We assess whether auditory cognitive ability, in particular short-term memory for sound features, contributes to both. We examined how auditory memory for fundamental sound features, the carrier frequency and amplitude modulation rate of modulated white noise, contributes to SIN perception. We assessed SIN in 153 healthy participants with varying degrees of hearing loss using measures that require single-digit perception (the Digits-in-Noise, DIN) and sentence perception (Speech-in-Babble, SIB). Independent variables were auditory memory and a range of other factors including the Pure Tone Audiogram (PTA), a measure of dichotic pitch-in-noise perception (Huggins pitch), and demographic variables including age and sex. Multiple linear regression models were compared using Bayesian Model Comparison. The best predictor model for DIN included PTA and Huggins pitch (r2 = 0.32, p < 0.001), whereas the model for SIB included the addition of auditory memory for sound features (r2 = 0.24, p < 0.001). Further analysis demonstrated that auditory memory also explained a significant portion of the variance (28 %) in scores for a screening cognitive test for dementia. Auditory memory for non-speech sounds may therefore provide an important predictor of both SIN and cognitive ability

Inattentional Deafness: Visual Load Leads to Time-Specific Suppression of Auditory Evoked Responses

UNLABELLED: Due to capacity limits on perception, conditions of high perceptual load lead to reduced processing of unattended stimuli (Lavie et al., 2014). Accumulating work demonstrates the effects of visual perceptual load on visual cortex responses, but the effects on auditory processing remain poorly understood. Here we establish the neural mechanisms underlying "inattentional deafness"--the failure to perceive auditory stimuli under high visual perceptual load. Participants performed a visual search task of low (target dissimilar to nontarget items) or high (target similar to nontarget items) load. On a random subset (50%) of trials, irrelevant tones were presented concurrently with the visual stimuli. Brain activity was recorded with magnetoencephalography, and time-locked responses to the visual search array and to the incidental presence of unattended tones were assessed. High, compared to low, perceptual load led to increased early visual evoked responses (within 100 ms from onset). This was accompanied by reduced early (∼ 100 ms from tone onset) auditory evoked activity in superior temporal sulcus and posterior middle temporal gyrus. A later suppression of the P3 "awareness" response to the tones was also observed under high load. A behavioral experiment revealed reduced tone detection sensitivity under high visual load, indicating that the reduction in neural responses was indeed associated with reduced awareness of the sounds. These findings support a neural account of shared audiovisual resources, which, when depleted under load, leads to failures of sensory perception and awareness. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The present work clarifies the neural underpinning of inattentional deafness under high visual load. The findings of near-simultaneous load effects on both visual and auditory evoked responses suggest shared audiovisual processing capacity. Temporary depletion of shared capacity in perceptually demanding visual tasks leads to a momentary reduction in sensory processing of auditory stimuli, resulting in inattentional deafness. The dynamic "push-pull" pattern of load effects on visual and auditory processing furthers our understanding of both the neural mechanisms of attention and of cross-modal effects across visual and auditory processing. These results also offer an explanation for many previous failures to find cross-modal effects in experiments where the visual load effects may not have coincided directly with auditory sensory processing

Difficulties with Speech-in-Noise Perception Related to Fundamental Grouping Processes in Auditory Cortex

In our everyday lives, we are often required to follow a conversation when background noise is present ("speech-in-noise" [SPIN] perception). SPIN perception varies widely-and people who are worse at SPIN perception are also worse at fundamental auditory grouping, as assessed by figure-ground tasks. Here, we examined the cortical processes that link difficulties with SPIN perception to difficulties with figure-ground perception using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found strong evidence that the earliest stages of the auditory cortical hierarchy (left core and belt areas) are similarly disinhibited when SPIN and figure-ground tasks are more difficult (i.e., at target-to-masker ratios corresponding to 60% rather than 90% performance)-consistent with increased cortical gain at lower levels of the auditory hierarchy. Overall, our results reveal a common neural substrate for these basic (figure-ground) and naturally relevant (SPIN) tasks-which provides a common computational basis for the link between SPIN perception and fundamental auditory grouping

The hearing hippocampus

The hippocampus has a well-established role in spatial and episodic memory but a broader function has been proposed including aspects of perception and relational processing. Neural bases of sound analysis have been described in the pathway to auditory cortex, but wider networks supporting auditory cognition are still being established. We review what is known about the role of the hippocampus in processing auditory information, and how the hippocampus itself is shaped by sound. In examining imaging, recording, and lesion studies in species from rodents to humans, we uncover a hierarchy of hippocampal responses to sound including during passive exposure, active listening, and the learning of associations between sounds and other stimuli. We describe how the hippocampus' connectivity and computational architecture allow it to track and manipulate auditory information – whether in the form of speech, music, or environmental, emotional, or phantom sounds. Functional and structural correlates of auditory experience are also identified. The extent of auditory-hippocampal interactions is consistent with the view that the hippocampus makes broad contributions to perception and cognition, beyond spatial and episodic memory. More deeply understanding these interactions may unlock applications including entraining hippocampal rhythms to support cognition, and intervening in links between hearing loss and dementia

Speech-in-noise detection is related to auditory working memory precision for frequency

Speech-in-noise (SiN) perception is a critical aspect of natural listening, deficits in which are a major contributor to the hearing handicap in cochlear hearing loss. Studies suggest that SiN perception correlates with cognitive skills, particularly phonological working memory: the ability to hold and manipulate phonemes or words in mind. We consider here the idea that SiN perception is linked to a more general ability to hold sound objects in mind, auditory working memory, irrespective of whether the objects are speech sounds. This process might help combine foreground elements, like speech, over seconds to aid their separation from the background of an auditory scene. We investigated the relationship between auditory working memory precision and SiN thresholds in listeners with normal hearing. We used a novel paradigm that tests auditory working memory for non-speech sounds that vary in frequency and amplitude modulation (AM) rate. The paradigm yields measures of precision in frequency and AM domains, based on the distribution of participants’ estimates of the target. Across participants, frequency precision correlated significantly with SiN thresholds. Frequency precision also correlated with the number of years of musical training. Measures of phonological working memory did not correlate with SiN detection ability. Our results demonstrate a specific relationship between working memory for frequency and SiN. We suggest that working memory for frequency facilitates the identification and tracking of foreground objects like speech during natural listening. Working memory performance for frequency also correlated with years of musical instrument experience suggesting that the former is potentially modifiable

A specific relationship between musical sophistication and auditory working memory

Previous studies have found conflicting results between individual measures related to music and fundamental aspects of auditory perception and cognition. The results have been difficult to compare because of different musical measures being used and lack of uniformity in the auditory perceptual and cognitive measures. In this study we used a general construct of musicianship, musical sophistication, that can be applied to populations with widely different backgrounds. We investigated the relationship between musical sophistication and measures of perception and working memory for sound by using a task suitable to measure both. We related scores from the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index to performance on tests of perception and working memory for two acoustic features-frequency and amplitude modulation. The data show that musical sophistication scores are best related to working memory for frequency in an analysis that accounts for age and non-verbal intelligence. Musical sophistication was not significantly associated with working memory for amplitude modulation rate or with the perception of either acoustic feature. The work supports a specific association between musical sophistication and working memory for sound frequency

Active inference, selective attention, and the cocktail party problem

In this paper, we introduce a new generative model for an active inference account of preparatory and selective attention, in the context of a classic ‘cocktail party’ paradigm. In this setup, pairs of words are presented simultaneously to the left and right ears and an instructive spatial cue directs attention to the left or right. We use this generative model to test competing hypotheses about the way that human listeners direct preparatory and selective attention. We show that assigning low precision to words at attended—relative to unattended—locations can explain why a listener reports words from a competing sentence. Under this model, temporal changes in sensory precision were not needed to account for faster reaction times with longer cue-target intervals, but were necessary to explain ramping effects on event-related potentials (ERPs)—resembling the contingent negative variation (CNV)—during the preparatory interval. These simulations reveal that different processes are likely to underlie the improvement in reaction times and the ramping of ERPs that are associated with spatial cueing