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Sound category habituation requires task-relevant attention

INTRODUCTION: Processing the wealth of sensory information from the surrounding environment is a vital human function with the potential to develop learning, advance social interactions, and promote safety and well-being. METHODS: To elucidate underlying processes governing these activities we measu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Moskowitz, Howard S., Sussman, Elyse S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10628171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37942141
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1228506
Descripción
Sumario:INTRODUCTION: Processing the wealth of sensory information from the surrounding environment is a vital human function with the potential to develop learning, advance social interactions, and promote safety and well-being. METHODS: To elucidate underlying processes governing these activities we measured neurophysiological responses to patterned stimulus sequences during a sound categorization task to evaluate attention effects on implicit learning, sound categorization, and speech perception. Using a unique experimental design, we uncoupled conceptual categorical effects from stimulus-specific effects by presenting categorical stimulus tokens that did not physically repeat. RESULTS: We found effects of implicit learning, categorical habituation, and a speech perception bias when the sounds were attended, and the listeners performed a categorization task (task-relevant). In contrast, there was no evidence of a speech perception bias, implicit learning of the structured sound sequence, or repetition suppression to repeated within-category sounds (no categorical habituation) when participants passively listened to the sounds and watched a silent closed-captioned video (task-irrelevant). No indication of category perception was demonstrated in the scalp-recorded brain components when participants were watching a movie and had no task with the sounds. DISCUSSION: These results demonstrate that attention is required to maintain category identification and expectations induced by a structured sequence when the conceptual information must be extracted from stimuli that are acoustically distinct. Taken together, these striking attention effects support the theoretical view that top-down control is required to initiate expectations for higher level cognitive processing.