Multiscale temporal integration organizes hierarchical computation in human auditory cortex

To derive meaning from sound, the brain must integrate information across many timescales. What computations underlie multiscale integration in human auditory cortex? Evidence suggests that auditory cortex analyzes sound using both generic acoustic representations (e.g. spectrotemporal modulation) and category-specific computations, but the timescales these putatively distinct computations integrate over remain unclear. To answer this question, we developed a general method to estimate sensory integration windows – the time window when stimuli alter the neural response – and applied our method to intracranial recordings from neurosurgical patients. We show that human auditory cortex integrates hierarchically across diverse timescales spanning ~50 to 400 milliseconds. Moreover, we find that neural populations with short and long integration windows exhibit distinct functional properties: short-integration electrodes (<200 milliseconds) show prominent spectrotemporal modulation selectivity, while long-integration electrodes (>200 milliseconds) show prominent category selectivity. These findings reveal how multiscale integration organizes auditory computation in the human brain.