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An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception

Our perception is based on active sensing, i.e., the relationship between self-motion and resulting changes to sensory inputs. Yet, traditional experimental paradigms are characterized by delayed reactions to a predetermined stimulus sequence. To increase the engagement of subjects and potentially p...

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Autores principales: Ferreiro, Dardo N., Winhart, Valentin R., Grothe, Benedikt, Bahrami, Bahador, Pecka, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9159912/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35662831
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.892951
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author Ferreiro, Dardo N.
Winhart, Valentin R.
Grothe, Benedikt
Bahrami, Bahador
Pecka, Michael
author_facet Ferreiro, Dardo N.
Winhart, Valentin R.
Grothe, Benedikt
Bahrami, Bahador
Pecka, Michael
author_sort Ferreiro, Dardo N.
collection PubMed
description Our perception is based on active sensing, i.e., the relationship between self-motion and resulting changes to sensory inputs. Yet, traditional experimental paradigms are characterized by delayed reactions to a predetermined stimulus sequence. To increase the engagement of subjects and potentially provide richer behavioral responses, we developed Sensory Island Task for humans (SITh), a freely-moving search paradigm to study auditory perception. In SITh, subjects navigate an arena in search of an auditory target, relying solely on changes in the presented stimulus frequency, which is controlled by closed-loop position tracking. A “target frequency” was played when subjects entered a circular sub-area of the arena, the “island”, while different frequencies were presented outside the island. Island locations were randomized across trials, making stimulus frequency the only informative cue for task completion. Two versions of SITh were studied: binary discrimination, and gradual change of the stimulus frequency. The latter version allowed determining frequency discrimination thresholds based on the subjects’ report of the perceived island location (i.e., target frequency). Surprisingly, subjects exhibited similar thresholds as reported in traditional “stationary” forced-choice experiments after performing only 30 trials, highlighting the intuitive nature of SITh. Notably, subjects spontaneously employed a small variety of stereotypical search patterns, and their usage proportions varied between task versions. Moreover, frequency discrimination performance depended on the search pattern used. Overall, we demonstrate that the use of an ecologically driven paradigm is able to reproduce established findings while simultaneously providing rich behavioral data for the description of sensory ethology.
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spelling pubmed-91599122022-06-03 An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception Ferreiro, Dardo N. Winhart, Valentin R. Grothe, Benedikt Bahrami, Bahador Pecka, Michael Front Integr Neurosci Neuroscience Our perception is based on active sensing, i.e., the relationship between self-motion and resulting changes to sensory inputs. Yet, traditional experimental paradigms are characterized by delayed reactions to a predetermined stimulus sequence. To increase the engagement of subjects and potentially provide richer behavioral responses, we developed Sensory Island Task for humans (SITh), a freely-moving search paradigm to study auditory perception. In SITh, subjects navigate an arena in search of an auditory target, relying solely on changes in the presented stimulus frequency, which is controlled by closed-loop position tracking. A “target frequency” was played when subjects entered a circular sub-area of the arena, the “island”, while different frequencies were presented outside the island. Island locations were randomized across trials, making stimulus frequency the only informative cue for task completion. Two versions of SITh were studied: binary discrimination, and gradual change of the stimulus frequency. The latter version allowed determining frequency discrimination thresholds based on the subjects’ report of the perceived island location (i.e., target frequency). Surprisingly, subjects exhibited similar thresholds as reported in traditional “stationary” forced-choice experiments after performing only 30 trials, highlighting the intuitive nature of SITh. Notably, subjects spontaneously employed a small variety of stereotypical search patterns, and their usage proportions varied between task versions. Moreover, frequency discrimination performance depended on the search pattern used. Overall, we demonstrate that the use of an ecologically driven paradigm is able to reproduce established findings while simultaneously providing rich behavioral data for the description of sensory ethology. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9159912/ /pubmed/35662831 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.892951 Text en Copyright © 2022 Ferreiro, Winhart, Grothe, Bahrami and Pecka. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Ferreiro, Dardo N.
Winhart, Valentin R.
Grothe, Benedikt
Bahrami, Bahador
Pecka, Michael
An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title_full An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title_fullStr An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title_full_unstemmed An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title_short An Active Sensing Paradigm for Studying Human Auditory Perception
title_sort active sensing paradigm for studying human auditory perception
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9159912/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35662831
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.892951
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