Prior context in audition informs binding and shapes simple features

Claire Chambers (), Sahar Akram, Vincent Adam, Claire Pelofi, Maneesh Sahani, Shihab Shamma and Daniel Pressnitzer ()
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Claire Chambers: Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, CNRS UMR 8248
Sahar Akram: Electrical and Computer Engineering & Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Vincent Adam: Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London
Claire Pelofi: Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, CNRS UMR 8248
Maneesh Sahani: Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London
Shihab Shamma: Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, CNRS UMR 8248
Daniel Pressnitzer: Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, CNRS UMR 8248

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract A perceptual phenomenon is reported, whereby prior acoustic context has a large, rapid and long-lasting effect on a basic auditory judgement. Pairs of tones were devised to include ambiguous transitions between frequency components, such that listeners were equally likely to report an upward or downward ‘pitch’ shift between tones. We show that presenting context tones before the ambiguous pair almost fully determines the perceived direction of shift. The context effect generalizes to a wide range of temporal and spectral scales, encompassing the characteristics of most realistic auditory scenes. Magnetoencephalographic recordings show that a relative reduction in neural responsivity is correlated to the behavioural effect. Finally, a computational model reproduces behavioural results, by implementing a simple constraint of continuity for binding successive sounds in a probabilistic manner. Contextual processing, mediated by ubiquitous neural mechanisms such as adaptation, may be crucial to track complex sound sources over time.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15027

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