Attention and Stimulus-Driven Processes in Auditory Object Perception

描述（由申请人提供）：听觉场景分析，能够解析和组织传入声音的混合物，以获得连贯的信息流，是听觉系统的基本过程，使我们能够在拥挤的房间中跟随单个声音，或聆听管弦乐队组曲中的长笛旋律。准确的语音感知依赖于区分和分离声学信号中的声音元素的能力。尽管这一过程对人类行为的重要性，但对有助于组织听觉输入的神经机制却知之甚少。该项目的长期目标是了解人类大脑如何将声音输入组织成有意义的听觉对象。提出的实验的目的是通过指定刺激驱动和注意机制之间的关系，引起一个连贯的听觉环境的感知，在评估感官输入和行为反应之间的处理阶段。这将使用事件相关电位（ERP）的高时间分辨率结合行为方法来完成，以比较刺激驱动的听觉过程的结果与在各种实验条件下对相同声音进行专注处理所产生的感知。所提出的实验的结果将提供新的见解感知复杂的听觉场景的过程，并导致更好地理解的贡献的自动和注意力机制的基础上正常和受损的听觉感知。中枢听觉处理的缺陷被认为在许多认知障碍中起关键作用（例如，自闭症、诵读困难）。使用电生理测量，结合行为方法来了解刺激驱动的过程和注意力如何在感知中相互作用，将促进我们对受损处理的理解，这对于制定诊断策略和康复治疗至关重要。由于受试者的反应是不需要获得某些ERP，这种方法的方法是有利的，用于儿童和受损人群的任务要求可能是困难的，因此有可能成为一个重要的非侵入性工具，用于诊断和评估中枢听觉处理缺陷。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Auditory scene analysis, the ability to parse and organize the mixture of incoming sounds to coherent streams of information, is a fundamental process of the auditory system that allows us to follow a single voice in the midst of a crowded room or to listen to the melody of the flute within an orchestral suite. Accurate speech perception relies on the ability to discriminate and segregate sound elements in the acoustic signal. Despite the importance of this process for human behavior, the neural mechanisms that subserve the organization of the auditory input are poorly understood. The long term goal of the project is to understand how the human brain organizes acoustic input into meaningful auditory objects. The experiments proposed are aimed at evaluating the processing stages between sensory input and behavioral response by specifying the relationship between the stimulus-driven and attentive mechanisms that give rise to the perception of a coherent auditory environment. This will be accomplished using high temporal resolution of event-related potentials (ERPs) in conjunction with behavioral methods to compare the outcome of stimulus-driven auditory processes with the perception resulting from attentive processing of the same sounds across various experimental conditions. The results of the proposed experiments will provide new insights into the processes involved in perceiving complex auditory scenes and lead to a greater understanding of the contribution of automatic and attentional mechanisms underlying both normal and impaired auditory perception. Deficits in central auditory processing are thought to play a key role in many cognitive disorders (e.g., autism, dyslexia). Using electrophysiological measures, in conjunction with behavioral methods to understand how stimulus-driven processes and attention interact in perception will advance our understanding of impaired processing, which is essential for developing diagnostic strategies and rehabilitative treatments. Since subject response is not needed for obtaining certain ERPs, this methodological approach is advantageous for use with children and impaired populations for whom task requirements may be difficult, and thus has the potential to be an important non-invasive tool for diagnosis and assessment of central auditory processing deficits.