Auditory Perceptual History Is Propagated through Alpha Oscillations.

Hao Tam Ho,Maria Concetta Morrone,David C Burr,David Alais

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.041

Hao Tam Ho, Maria Concetta Morrone + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.041

Copy DOI

Abstract

SummaryPerception is a proactive, “predictive” process, in which the brain relies, at least in part, on accumulated experience to make best guesses about the world to test against sensory data, updating the guesses as new experience is acquired. Using novel behavioral methods, the present study demonstrates the role of alpha rhythms in communicating past perceptual experience. Participants were required to discriminate the ear of origin of brief sinusoidal tones that were presented monaurally at random times within a burst of uncorrelated dichotic white noise masks. Performance was not constant but varied with delay after noise onset in an oscillatory manner at about 9 Hz (alpha rhythm). Importantly, oscillations occurred only for trials preceded by a target tone to the same ear, either on the previous trial or two trials back. These results suggest that communication of perceptual history generates neural oscillations within specific perceptual circuits, strongly implicating behavioral oscillations in predictive perception and with formation of working memory.

Highlights

It has long been known that perception depends heavily on expectations and perceptual experience
Perception is a proactive, ‘‘predictive’’ process, in which the brain relies, at least in part, on accumulated experience to make best guesses about the world to test against sensory data, updating the guesses as new experience is acquired
The present study demonstrates the role of alpha rhythms in communicating past perceptual experience

Summary

Introduction

It has long been known that perception depends heavily on expectations and perceptual experience. Helmholtz [1] introduced the concept of ‘‘unconscious inference,’’ suggesting that perception is at least partly ‘‘inferential’’ or ‘‘generative,’’ and Gregory [2] described perception as a series of hypotheses to be verified against sensory data, using many compelling illusions to support this notion. Recent studies using ‘‘serial dependence’’ demonstrate clearly the action of predictive perception and provide a means of quantitative study: under many conditions, the appearance of images in a sequence depends strongly on the stimulus presented just prior to the current one. Sequential effects can last up to minutes [11], showing that perception does not rely solely on instantaneous stimulation and on predictions, or ‘‘priors,’’ conditioned by events over a long time course

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion