Neural Dynamics Underlying the Emergence of Auditory Categorization and Learning

项目摘要 对世界的成功感知需要人脑汇集各种感官信息 形成共同的、结构良好的分组，这一过程被称为范畴感知(CP)。在其核心，CP是已知的 如“不变性”或“多对一映射”问题：感官特征的无限集合必须是 转换成有限的、不变的感知空间，由感知系统对其进行作用。分类 表现在人类认知和学习的几乎所有方面，包括对脸、颜色和 音乐。熟练的分类在口语和书面语的语境中尤其重要，这一点显而易见 通过它在阅读习得和基于听觉的学习障碍(例如，阅读困难，特定的 语言障碍)。尽管有大量的行为研究及其对理解接受性的重要性 在人类交流中，CP核心能力背后的神经机制仍然知之甚少。在……里面 一系列研究，拟议的工作将解决大脑何时、何地和如何的基本问题 将连续的声音信号转换为离散的、有意义的类别，由感知系统利用。 高密度神经电脑记录(EEG/ERP)将在任务期间从人类听者那里获得 旨在挖掘分类加工的不同属性并调节其神经生物学。我们的中央 假设是，听觉分类技能招募了一个共同的、简约的额颞神经网络 这既是动态的，也是不同的，取决于注意力、刺激的熟悉度 背景/复杂性、学习和先前的聆听经验。将使用新的多变量分析技术 从听者的事件相关电位中得出“神经测量功能”，以“解码”听者的言语感知行为。 他们潜在的大脑活动。这种常见的神经计算方法将被用来研究几个 通过五个研究目标调节听觉分类技能的因素：(目标1)时空 大脑中出现CP；(目标2)线性与非线性信号动力学；(目标3)从 不同的领域(例如，语音和音乐)；(目标4)先前的听力经验和新奇的学习。目标5将 从脑电记录测量功能连通性，以确定内部定向信息流 CP脑网络随着先前目标的操纵而变化(例如，学习与加工成熟 类别)。提供了更完整的声学到语音映射问题的生物学描述 CP最终不仅提供了一扇了解正常言语感知的窗口，还可能揭示重要的神经 以损害听觉类别形成的紊乱为目标的机制。

Project Summary Successful perception of the world requires that the human brain assemble diverse sensory information into common, well-formed groupings, a process known as categorical perception (CP). At its core, CP is known as the “invariance-” or “many-to-one mapping” problem: an infinite collection of sensory features must be converted into a finite, invariant perceptual space to be acted upon by the perceptual system. Categorization manifests in nearly all aspects of human cognition and learning including the perception of faces, colors, and music. Skilled categorization is particularly important in the context of spoken and written language as evident by its integral role in reading acquisition and auditory-based learning disorders (e.g., dyslexia, specific language impairment). Despite a wealth of behavioral studies and its importance to understanding receptive human communication, the neural mechanisms underlying the core ability of CP remain poorly understood. In a series of studies, the proposed work will address foundational questions of when, where, and how the brain converts continuous acoustic signals into discrete, meaningful categories exploited by the perceptual system. High-density neuroelectric brain recordings (EEG/ERP) will be obtained from human listeners during tasks designed to tap different attributes of categorical processing and modulate its neurobiology. Our central hypothesis is that auditory categorization skills recruit a common, parsimonious frontotemporal neural network that is both dynamically and differentially engaged depending on attention, familiarity of stimulus context/complexity, learning, and prior listening experience. Novel multivariate analytic techniques will be used to derive “neurometric functions” from listeners’ ERPs to “decode” listeners’ speech perception behaviors from their underlying brain activity. This common neurocomputational approach will be used to investigate several factors that modulate auditory categorization skills through five research aims: (Aim 1) the spatiotemporal emergence of CP in the brain; (Aim 2) linear vs. nonlinear signal dynamics; (Aim 3) identifying sounds from different domains (e.g., speech vs. music); (Aim 4) prior listening experience and novel learning. Aim 5 will measure functional connectivity from EEG recordings to determine how the directed flow of information within the CP brain network changes with the manipulations of prior aims (e.g., learning vs. processing mature categories). Providing a more complete biological description of the acoustic-to-phonetic mapping problem of CP will ultimately offer a window into not only normal speech perception but may reveal important neural mechanisms to target in disorders that impair the formation of auditory categories.