The Role of Motor and Environmental Visual Rhythms in Structuring Auditory Cortical Excitability

O’Connell, Monica N.; Barczak, Annamaria; McGinnis, Tammy; Mackin, Kieran; Mowery, Todd M.; Schroeder, Charles E.; Lakatos, Péter L.

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101374

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…That eye movements reduce with increasing listening effort aligns with work in non-human mammals, showing increased activity in auditory cortex during periods of reduced movements (Schneider et al, 2014; McGinley et al, 2015; Schneider and Mooney, 2015, 2018; O’Connell et al, 2020), and heightened neuronal excitability in auditory cortex in the absence of eye movements (O’Connell et al, 2020). Reductions in any (eye) movements may thus support auditory processing, including speech perception, by enhancing auditory-system sensitivity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

“…This possibility is supported by neurophysiological evidence showing that a reduction in movements increases neural activity in the auditory cortex and, in turn, improves sound perception (Schneider et al, 2014; McGinley et al, 2015; Schneider and Mooney, 2015, 2018). Critically, eye movements directly modulate neuronal excitability in auditory cortex, such that the likelihood of a neuron firing, and thus responding to sound, increases in the absence of eye movements (O’Connell et al, 2020). Research further suggests that eve movements and pupil dilation might be driven by common underlying neurophysiology (Joshi and Gold, 2020; Wang and Munoz, 2021; Burlingham et al, 2022), and, as a result, may perhaps both be sensitive to listening effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eye movements decrease during effortful speech listening

Cui¹,

Herrmann²

2023

Preprint

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Pupillometry is the most used objective tool to assess listening effort but has several disadvantages. The current study explores a new, objective way to assess listening effort through eye movements. Building on cognitive and neurophysiological work, we examine the hypothesis that eye movements decrease when speech listening becomes challenging. In three experiments with human participants from both sexes, we demonstrate, consistent with this hypothesis, that fixation duration increases and spatial gaze dispersion decreases with increasing speech masking. Eye movements decreased during effortful speech listening for different visual scenes (free viewing; object tracking) and speech materials (simple sentences; naturalistic stories). In contrast, pupillometry was insensitive to speech masking during story listening, highlighting the challenges with pupillometric measures for the assessments of listening effort in naturalistic speech-listening paradigms. Our results reveal a critical link between eye movements and cognitive load, and provide the foundation for a novel measure of listening effort applicable in a wide range of contexts.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements decrease during effortful speech listening

Cui¹,

Herrmann²

2023

Preprint

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“…Therefore, eye-movement-related information is present at the auditory periphery, providing the auditory system early access to signals necessary for communication with visual maps of space. The mechanism(s) underlying such signals may alter auditory transduction in an eye-movement dependent fashion and could contribute to previous neurophysiological observations of eye-movement-related modulation of the auditory pathway (Groh et al, 2001; Werner-Reiss et al, 2003; Fu et al, 2004; Zwiers et al, 2004; Porter et al, 2006; Maier and Groh, 2010; Bulkin and Groh, 2012a, b; O’Connell et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Individual similarities and differences in eye-movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs)

King

Lovich

Murphy

et al. 2023

Preprint

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A unique type of low-frequency otoacoustic emission (OAE) time-locked to the onset (and offset) of saccadic eye movements was recently discovered in our laboratory (Gruters et al., 2018). The specific underlying mechanisms that generate these eye-movement-related eardrum oscillations (termed EMREOs) and their possible role in auditory perception are unknown. Clues to both the drivers of EMREOs and their purpose can be gleaned by examining responses in normal hearing human subjects. Do EMREOs occur in all individuals with normal hearing? If so, what components of the response occur most consistently? Understanding which attributes of EMREOs are similar across participants and which show more variability will provide the groundwork for future comparisons with individuals with hearing abnormalities affecting the ear's various motor components. Here we report that in subjects with normal hearing thresholds and normal middle ear function, all ears show (a) measurable EMREOs, (b) a phase reversal for contra- versus ipsilaterally-directed saccades, (c) a large peak in the signal occurring soon after saccade onset, (d) an additional large peak time-locked to saccade offset and (e) evidence that saccade duration is encoded in the signal. We interpret the attributes of EMREOs that are most consistent across subjects as the ones that are most likely to play an essential role in their function. The individual differences likely reflect normal variation in individuals' auditory system anatomy and physiology, much like traditional measures of auditory function such as auditory-evoked OAEs, tympanometry and auditory-evoked potentials. Future work will compare subjects with different types of auditory dysfunction to population data from normal hearing subjects.

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“…Namely, investigators have consistently reported that cortical oscillations play a role in processing competing sound sources (e.g., competing speech streams) and stimuli from multiple modalities (Lakatos et al 2007;Zion Golumbic et al 2013). Specifically, in the case of visual modulation of auditory processing, it has recently been shown that visual input (a rhythmic flashing LED) enhances oscillations entrained by sound in primary auditory cortex (O'Connell et al 2020). This enhanced excitability may reflect a mechanism for prioritized processing of temporally coherent auditory and visual stimuli.…”

Section: Functional Significance Of Audiovisual Integration In Auditory Cortexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual Influences on Auditory Behavioral, Neural, and Perceptual Processes: A Review

Opoku-Baah

Schoenhaut

Vassall

et al. 2021

JARO

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In a naturalistic environment, auditory cues are often accompanied by information from other senses, which can be redundant with or complementary to the auditory information. Although the multisensory interactions derived from this combination of information and that shape auditory function are seen across all sensory modalities, our greatest body of knowledge to date centers on how vision influences audition. In this review, we attempt to capture the state of our understanding at this point in time regarding this topic. Following a general introduction, the review is divided into 5 sections. In the first section, we review the psychophysical evidence in humans regarding vision’s influence in audition, making the distinction between vision’s ability to enhance versus alter auditory performance and perception. Three examples are then described that serve to highlight vision’s ability to modulate auditory processes: spatial ventriloquism, cross-modal dynamic capture, and the McGurk effect. The final part of this section discusses models that have been built based on available psychophysical data and that seek to provide greater mechanistic insights into how vision can impact audition. The second section reviews the extant neuroimaging and far-field imaging work on this topic, with a strong emphasis on the roles of feedforward and feedback processes, on imaging insights into the causal nature of audiovisual interactions, and on the limitations of current imaging-based approaches. These limitations point to a greater need for machine-learning-based decoding approaches toward understanding how auditory representations are shaped by vision. The third section reviews the wealth of neuroanatomical and neurophysiological data from animal models that highlights audiovisual interactions at the neuronal and circuit level in both subcortical and cortical structures. It also speaks to the functional significance of audiovisual interactions for two critically important facets of auditory perception—scene analysis and communication. The fourth section presents current evidence for alterations in audiovisual processes in three clinical conditions: autism, schizophrenia, and sensorineural hearing loss. These changes in audiovisual interactions are postulated to have cascading effects on higher-order domains of dysfunction in these conditions. The final section highlights ongoing work seeking to leverage our knowledge of audiovisual interactions to develop better remediation approaches to these sensory-based disorders, founded in concepts of perceptual plasticity in which vision has been shown to have the capacity to facilitate auditory learning.

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The Role of Motor and Environmental Visual Rhythms in Structuring Auditory Cortical Excitability

Cited by 14 publications

References 109 publications

Eye movements decrease during effortful speech listening

Eye movements decrease during effortful speech listening

Individual similarities and differences in eye-movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs)

Visual Influences on Auditory Behavioral, Neural, and Perceptual Processes: A Review

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