Abstract
Converging results suggest that perception is controlled by rhythmic processes in the brain. In the auditory domain, neuroimaging studies show that the perception of sounds is shaped by rhythmic activity prior to the stimulus, and electrophysiological recordings have linked delta and theta band activity to the functioning of individual neurons. These results have promoted theories of rhythmic modes of listening and generally suggest that the perceptually relevant encoding of acoustic information is structured by rhythmic processes along auditory pathways. A prediction from this perspective—which so far has not been tested—is that such rhythmic processes also shape how acoustic information is combined over time to judge extended soundscapes. The present study was designed to directly test this prediction. Human participants judged the overall change in perceived frequency content in temporally extended (1.2–1.8 s) soundscapes, while the perceptual use of the available sensory evidence was quantified using psychophysical reverse correlation. Model-based analysis of individual participant’s perceptual weights revealed a rich temporal structure, including linear trends, a U-shaped profile tied to the overall stimulus duration, and importantly, rhythmic components at the time scale of 1–2 Hz. The collective evidence found here across four versions of the experiment supports the notion that rhythmic processes operating on the delta time scale structure how perception samples temporally extended acoustic scenes.
Highlights
Perception seems to be systematically controlled by rhythmic processes in the brain (VanRullen, 2016; Haegens and Zion Golumbic, 2018; Helfrich, 2018)
We investigated whether the relation between the sensory evidence contained in temporally extended soundscapes and participant’s judgments is governed by rhythmic components, as predicted by theories of rhythmic modes of listening, as well as studies linking delta/theta band neural activity with perception
The four experiments differed in the overall stimulus duration (Table 1; 1,200 ms to 1,800 ms) and the time scale at which perceptual weights were sampled (5.5–11 Hz)
Summary
Perception seems to be systematically controlled by rhythmic processes in the brain (VanRullen, 2016; Haegens and Zion Golumbic, 2018; Helfrich, 2018). These rhythmic processes may for example reflect the excitability sensory neurons (Lakatos et al, 2005; Romei et al, 2008; Kayser et al, 2015), the selection of specific features for a behavioral response (Wyart et al, 2012; Wostmann et al, 2016), or the attentional modulation of perception (Busch et al, 2009; Busch and VanRullen, 2010). The time scales of human perceptual sensitivity and the time scales at which rhythmic auditory activity shapes perception seem to be well matched (Edwards and Chang, 2013; Keitel et al, 2018)
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