The role of attention in the formation of auditory streams

Sussman, Elyse; Horváth, János; Winkler, István; Orr, Mark

doi:10.3758/bf03194460

Cited by 148 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Humans and other vertebrates separate different streams of auditory input based on their frequency differences in a process called auditory stream segregation [52][53][54][55]. Attention has been implicated in this process although its importance is still debated [56]. Crickets and bushcrickets typically can hear sounds in two frequency ranges-a low frequency range for intraspecific communication and a high [1,24]), (b) frequency (see [48]) or (c) timing (see [2,49,50]), all of which are cues used by crickets or bushcrickets to selectively attend to calls in their environment.…”

Section: Competitive Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention-like processes in insects

Nityananda

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Attention is fundamentally important for sensory systems to focus on behaviourally relevant stimuli. It has therefore been an important field of study in human psychology and neuroscience. Primates, however, are not the only animals that might benefit from attention-like processes. Other animals, including insects, also have to use their senses and select one among many stimuli to forage, avoid predators and find mates. They have evolved different mechanisms to reduce the information processed by their brains to focus on only relevant stimuli. What are the mechanisms used by insects to selectively attend to visual and auditory stimuli? Do these attention-like mechanisms achieve the same functions as they do in primates? To investigate these questions, I use an established framework for investigating attention in non-human animals that proposes four fundamental components of attention: salience filters, competitive selection, top-down sensitivity control and working memory. I discuss evidence for each of these component processes in insects and compare the characteristics of these processes in insects to what we know from primates. Finally, I highlight important outstanding questions about insect attention that need to be addressed for us to understand the differences and similarities between vertebrate and insect attention.

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Section: Competitive Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention-like processes in insects

Nityananda

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Some psychophysical studies indicate that attention can modulate stream formation under certain conditions [25,26]. On the other hand, EEG studies generally demonstrate that the initial stages of stream formation are stimulus-driven and automatic, and attention may affect only later stages where streams have been formed [11,13,16,27]. In any case, the role of the IPS in AS is not clear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional brain networks underlying perceptual switching: auditory streaming and verbal transformations

Kashino

Kondo²

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Recent studies have shown that auditory scene analysis involves distributed neural sites below, in, and beyond the auditory cortex (AC). However, it remains unclear what role each site plays and how they interact in the formation and selection of auditory percepts. We addressed this issue through perceptual multistability phenomena, namely, spontaneous perceptual switching in auditory streaming (AS) for a sequence of repeated triplet tones, and perceptual changes for a repeated word, known as verbal transformations (VTs). An event-related fMRI analysis revealed brain activity timelocked to perceptual switching in the cerebellum for AS, in frontal areas for VT, and the AC and thalamus for both. The results suggest that motor-based prediction, produced by neural networks outside the auditory system, plays essential roles in the segmentation of acoustic sequences both in AS and VT. The frequency of perceptual switching was determined by a balance between the activation of two sites, which are proposed to be involved in exploring novel perceptual organization and stabilizing current perceptual organization. The effect of the gene polymorphism of catechol- O -methyltransferase (COMT) on individual variations in switching frequency suggests that the balance of exploration and stabilization is modulated by catecholamines such as dopamine and noradrenalin. These mechanisms would support the noteworthy flexibility of auditory scene analysis.

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“…Audible sound in a mixture is not always allocated between the objects perceived in a scene, and can contribute to either multiple objects [5,6] or to no object [7]. The state of the listener, from expectations about a scene's content to the level of analysis a listener undertakes (listening to a symphony versus to the English horn solo), influence the perceived content of an object [8,9]. Particularly for ambiguously structured stimuli, the perceptual organization of a scene evolves over time and/or is bistable [10,11].…”

Section: Auditory Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object-based auditory and visual attention

Shinn‐Cunningham

2008

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

640

568

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Theories of visual attention argue that attention operates on perceptual objects, and thus that interactions between object formation and selective attention determine how competing sources interfere with perception. In auditory perception, theories of attention are less mature, and no comprehensive framework exists to explain how attention influences perceptual abilities. However, the same principles that govern visual perception can explain many seemingly disparate auditory phenomena. In particular, many recent studies of "informational masking" can be explained by failures of either auditory object formation or auditory object selection. This similarity suggests that the same neural mechanisms control attention and influence perception across different sensory modalities.

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The role of attention in the formation of auditory streams

Cited by 148 publications

References 57 publications

Attention-like processes in insects

Attention-like processes in insects

Functional brain networks underlying perceptual switching: auditory streaming and verbal transformations

Object-based auditory and visual attention

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