Rapid ocular responses are a robust marker for bottom-up driven auditory salience
Rapid ocular responses are a robust marker for bottom-up driven auditory salience
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DOI：
10.1101/498485
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发表时间：
2018-12
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Sijia Zhao;Nga Wai Yum;Lucas Benjamin;E. Benhamou;S. Furukawa;F. Dick;M. Slaney;M. Chait
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文献类型：
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作者：
Sijia Zhao;Nga Wai Yum;Lucas Benjamin;E. Benhamou;S. Furukawa;F. Dick;M. Slaney;M. Chait
尽管在警报器和人机界面系统中普遍使用警报声音，但我们对决定听觉突出性（声音自动吸引注意力）的因素以及支撑这一过程的大脑机制只有初步的了解。理解的一个主要障碍是缺乏一种强有力的、客观的方法来量化声音驱动的注意力捕获。在这里，我们证明了微扫视抑制——在声音开始300毫秒内产生的一种眼动反应——是短暂声音显著性的有力标志。具体来说，我们发现“人群来源”（N=911）的主观显著性排名与naïve被动聆听参与者测量的上丘（SC）介导的眼冻结反应密切相关（在两组中重复，每组N=15）。更显著的声音引起更早的微眼球抑制，与更快的定向反应一致。这些结果表明，SC内的微眼跳指数活动是听觉显著性的实际客观测量。微扫视是一种微小、快速、固定的眼球运动，可以用灵敏的眼球追踪设备测量。我们揭示了微跳动态与简短声音的主观显着性之间的一种新颖而强大的联系（显着性排名来自大量在线实验的参与者）：在声音开始300毫秒内，naïve被动倾听参与者的眼睛表现出不同的微跳模式，作为声音感知显着性的函数。这些结果将上丘（微跳的产生者）定位为一个重要的大脑区域，在假定的多模态显著性中枢的背景下进行研究，并建立一个强大的客观手段来量化听觉显著性，这在基于声音的人机界面的发展中至关重要。
Despite the prevalent use of alerting sounds in alarms and human-machine interface systems, we have only a rudimentary understanding of what determines auditory salience - the automatic attraction of attention by sound - and the brain mechanisms which underlie this process. A major roadblock to understanding has been the lack of a robust, objective means of quantifying sound-driven attentional capture. Here we demonstrate that microsaccade inhibition – an oculomotor response arising within 300ms of sound onset - is a robust marker for the salience of brief sounds. Specifically, we show that a ‘crowd sourced’ (N=911) subjective salience ranking correlated robustly with the superior colliculus (SC) mediated ocular freezing response measured in naïve, passively listening participants (replicated in two groups of N=15 each). More salient sounds evoked earlier microsaccadic inhibition, consistent with a faster orienting response. These results establish that microsaccade-indexed activity within the SC is a practical objective measure for auditory salience. Significance statement Microsaccades are small, rapid, fixational eye movements, measurable with sensitive eye-tracking equipment. We reveal a novel, robust link between microsaccade dynamics and the subjective salience of brief sounds (salience ranking obtained from a large number of participants in an online experiment): Within 300 ms of sound onset, the eyes of naïve, passively listening participants demonstrate different microsaccade patterns as a function of the sound’s perceptual salience. These results position the Superior Colliculus (the generator of microsaccades) as an important brain area to investigate in the context of a putative multi-modal salience-hub and establish a robust objective means for quantifying auditory salience, critical in the development of sound-based human machine interfaces.