Rising Sound Intensity: An Intrinsic Warning Cue Activating the Amygdala

Bach, Dominik R.; Schächinger, Hartmut; Neuhoff, John G.; Esposito, Fabrizio; Salle, Francesco Di; Lehmann, Christoph U.; Herdener, Marcus; Scheffler, Klaus; Seifritz, Erich

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm040

Cited by 151 publications

(192 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…This is probably because of the block design used in that study, which may have led to habituation effects. Indeed, a more recent study by the same group using the same stimuli and an event-related design demonstrates that looming sounds elicit greater activity in auditory cortical areas in the temporal plane (but outside Heschl's gyrus, or primary auditory cortex) than do receding sounds (Bach et al, 2007), consistent with our present results. However, it is not clear whether the lateral belt area in our study is homologous to the temporal plane activation seen by Bach et al (2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Indeed, a more recent study by the same group using the same stimuli and an event-related design demonstrates that looming sounds elicit greater activity in auditory cortical areas in the temporal plane (but outside Heschl's gyrus, or primary auditory cortex) than do receding sounds (Bach et al, 2007), consistent with our present results. However, it is not clear whether the lateral belt area in our study is homologous to the temporal plane activation seen by Bach et al (2007). This is in large part because of the lack of comparative anatomical data examining the similarities and differences between the auditory cortices [beyond the core region (Hackett et al, 2001)] of monkeys, apes, and humans.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…The asymmetric neural processing of looming versus receding sounds in lateral belt auditory cortex possibly reflects an adaptive mechanism that creates a margin of safety when dealing with rapidly approaching danger. Thus, the lateral belt cortex represents one node in a network adapted to respond to warning cues (Bremmer et al, 2001;Seifritz et al, 2002;Cooke and Graziano, 2004;Bach et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Looming Biases in Monkey Auditory Cortex

Maier¹,

Ghazanfar²

2007

J. Neurosci.

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Looming signals (signals that indicate the rapid approach of objects) are behaviorally relevant signals for all animals. Accordingly, studies in primates (including humans) reveal attentional biases for detecting and responding to looming versus receding signals in both the auditory and visual domains. We investigated the neural representation of these dynamic signals in the lateral belt auditory cortex of rhesus monkeys. By recording local field potential and multiunit spiking activity while the subjects were presented with auditory looming and receding signals, we show here that auditory cortical activity was biased in magnitude toward looming versus receding stimuli. This directional preference was not attributable to the absolute intensity of the sounds nor can it be attributed to simple adaptation, because white noise stimuli with identical amplitude envelopes did not elicit the same pattern of responses. This asymmetrical representation of looming versus receding sounds in the lateral belt auditory cortex suggests that it is an important node in the neural network correlate of looming perception.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Looming Biases in Monkey Auditory Cortex

Maier¹,

Ghazanfar²

2007

J. Neurosci.

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“…The contrast between sounds increasing vs. decreasing in intensity, however, revealed a different network, including superior temporal sulcus and amygdala, which may reflect a warning process for approaching objects (4,9,20). A more recent fMRI Significance Previous studies demonstrated "auditory looming bias" exclusively by manipulating overall sound intensity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The phenomenon that approaching sounds are more salient than receding sounds is commonly termed "auditory looming bias." Looming bias is reflected in a broad variety of psychophysical tasks related to salience and alertness: bias in loudness-change estimates (2-4) and judgments of duration (5), improved discriminability of motion speed (6), underestimated distances for egocentrically moving (4) or bypassing sounds (7,8), and reduced reaction time for auditory (3,9) and visual (3) targets preceded by looming sounds. In animals, looming biases result in faster learning speed during associative conditioning (10) and longer duration of attention (11).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

Baumgartner

Reed

Tóth

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Studies of auditory looming bias have shown that sources increasing in intensity are more salient than sources decreasing in intensity. Researchers have argued that listeners are more sensitive to approaching sounds compared with receding sounds, reflecting an evolutionary pressure. However, these studies only manipulated overall sound intensity; therefore, it is unclear whether looming bias is truly a perceptual bias for changes in source distance, or only in sound intensity. Here we demonstrate both behavioral and neural correlates of looming bias without manipulating overall sound intensity. In natural environments, the pinnae induce spectral cues that give rise to a sense of externalization; when spectral cues are unnatural, sounds are perceived as closer to the listener. We manipulated the contrast of individually tailored spectral cues to create sounds of similar intensity but different naturalness. We confirmed that sounds were perceived as approaching when spectral contrast decreased, and perceived as receding when spectral contrast increased. We measured behavior and electroencephalography while listeners judged motion direction. Behavioral responses showed a looming bias in that responses were more consistent for sounds perceived as approaching than for sounds perceived as receding. In a control experiment, looming bias disappeared when spectral contrast changes were discontinuous, suggesting that perceived motion in distance and not distance itself was driving the bias. Neurally, looming bias was reflected in an asymmetry of late eventrelated potentials associated with motion evaluation. Hence, both our behavioral and neural findings support a generalization of the auditory looming bias, representing a perceptual preference for approaching auditory objects.auditory looming bias | electroencephalography | distance motion perception | sound externalization | head-related transfer functions I magine yourself alone in the wilderness. Suddenly, a threatening sound permeates the darkness. Is it approaching? This is a critical question when it comes to your survival because approaching objects usually pose a greater threat than receding objects (1). The phenomenon that approaching sounds are more salient than receding sounds is commonly termed "auditory looming bias." Looming bias is reflected in a broad variety of psychophysical tasks related to salience and alertness: bias in loudness-change estimates (2-4) and judgments of duration (5), improved discriminability of motion speed (6), underestimated distances for egocentrically moving (4) or bypassing sounds (7,8), and reduced reaction time for auditory (3, 9) and visual (3) targets preceded by looming sounds. In animals, looming biases result in faster learning speed during associative conditioning (10) and longer duration of attention (11). This list shows that looming bias triggers a variety of percepts across a wide range of psychoacoustic tasks. Despite its broad behavioral significance, the mechanisms underlying auditory looming bias are still poorly ...

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Contextual effects on loudness judgments for sounds with continuous changes of intensity are reflected in nonauditory areas

Behler

Uppenkamp

2021

Human Brain Mapping

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Psychoacoustic research suggests that judgments of perceived loudness change differ significantly between sounds with continuous increases and decreases of acoustic intensity, often referred to as “up‐ramps” and “down‐ramps.” The magnitude and direction of this difference, in turn, appears to depend on focused attention and the specific task performed by the listeners. This has led to the suspicion that cognitive processes play an important role in the development of the observed context effects. The present study addressed this issue by exploring neural correlates of context‐dependent loudness judgments. Normal hearing listeners continuously judged the loudness of complex‐tone sequences which slowly changed in level over time while auditory fMRI was performed. Regression models that included information either about presented sound levels or about individual loudness judgments were used to predict activation throughout the brain. Our psychoacoustical data confirmed robust effects of the direction of intensity change on loudness judgments. Specifically, stimuli were judged softer when following a down‐ramp, and louder in the context of an up‐ramp. Levels and loudness estimates significantly predicted activation in several brain areas, including auditory cortex. However, only activation in nonauditory regions was more accurately predicted by context‐dependent loudness estimates as compared with sound levels, particularly in the orbitofrontal cortex and medial temporal areas. These findings support the idea that cognitive aspects contribute to the generation of context effects with respect to continuous loudness judgments.

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Rising Sound Intensity: An Intrinsic Warning Cue Activating the Amygdala

Cited by 151 publications

References 51 publications

Looming Biases in Monkey Auditory Cortex

Looming Biases in Monkey Auditory Cortex

Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

Contextual effects on loudness judgments for sounds with continuous changes of intensity are reflected in nonauditory areas

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