Invariance to background noise as a signature of non-primary auditory cortex
Abstract
Despite well-established anatomical differences between primary and non-primary auditory cortex, the associated representational transformations have remained elusive. Here we show that primary and non-primary auditory cortex are differentiated by their invariance to real-world background noise. We measured fMRI responses to natural sounds presented in isolation and in real-world noise, quantifying invariance as the correlation between the two responses for individual voxels. Non-primary areas were substantially more noise-invariant than primary areas. This primary-nonprimary difference occurred both for speech and non-speech sounds and was unaffected by a concurrent demanding visual task, suggesting that the observed invariance is not specific to speech processing and is robust to inattention. The difference was most pronounced for real-world background noise—both primary and non-primary areas were relatively robust to simple types of synthetic noise. Our results suggest a general representational transformation between auditory cortical stages, illustrating a representational consequence of hierarchical organization in the auditory system.
- Authors:
-
[2]
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). McGovern Inst. for Brain Research, Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines; Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Zuckerman Inst. of Mind, Brain, and Behavior
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). McGovern Inst. for Brain Research, Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines; Harvard Univ., Boston, MA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Krell Institute, Ames, IA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1610345
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-97ER25308; 1R01DC014739-01A1; R25GM067110; BCS-1634050; PHY17-48958
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 10; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; Science & Technology - Other Topics
Citation Formats
Kell, Alexander J. E., and McDermott, Josh H. Invariance to background noise as a signature of non-primary auditory cortex. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11710-y.
Kell, Alexander J. E., & McDermott, Josh H. Invariance to background noise as a signature of non-primary auditory cortex. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11710-y
Kell, Alexander J. E., and McDermott, Josh H. Mon .
"Invariance to background noise as a signature of non-primary auditory cortex". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11710-y. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1610345.
@article{osti_1610345,
title = {Invariance to background noise as a signature of non-primary auditory cortex},
author = {Kell, Alexander J. E. and McDermott, Josh H.},
abstractNote = {Despite well-established anatomical differences between primary and non-primary auditory cortex, the associated representational transformations have remained elusive. Here we show that primary and non-primary auditory cortex are differentiated by their invariance to real-world background noise. We measured fMRI responses to natural sounds presented in isolation and in real-world noise, quantifying invariance as the correlation between the two responses for individual voxels. Non-primary areas were substantially more noise-invariant than primary areas. This primary-nonprimary difference occurred both for speech and non-speech sounds and was unaffected by a concurrent demanding visual task, suggesting that the observed invariance is not specific to speech processing and is robust to inattention. The difference was most pronounced for real-world background noise—both primary and non-primary areas were relatively robust to simple types of synthetic noise. Our results suggest a general representational transformation between auditory cortical stages, illustrating a representational consequence of hierarchical organization in the auditory system.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-11710-y},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 10,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {9}
}
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