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Related Experiment Video

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A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

Published on: October 29, 2018

Processing of spatial sounds in human auditory cortex during visual, discrimination and 2-back tasks.

Teemu Rinne¹, Heidi Ala-Salomäki², G Christopher Stecker³

¹Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland ; Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto University School of Science Espoo, Finland.

Frontiers in Neuroscience

|August 15, 2014

Summary

This study reveals how the human brain processes spatial hearing. The auditory cortex (AC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) show distinct responses to sound location, distance, and room acoustics during various tasks.

Keywords:

auditory cortex fMRI spatial processing

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Auditory Perception
Brain Imaging

Background:

Previous research on spatial hearing primarily examined horizontal sound plane variations.
The roles of auditory cortex (AC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) in complex spatial sound processing remain incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare brain activations in the AC and IPL in response to sounds varying in horizontal location, distance, and room acoustics.
To investigate stimulus-dependent and task-dependent activations within these brain regions.

Main Methods:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
Participants performed visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, and auditory 2-back memory tasks with spatially varied sounds.

Main Results:

Auditory cortex (AC) activations were modulated by auditory tasks and showed enhanced responses to horizontal sound locations across auditory and visual tasks.
The inferior parietal lobule (IPL) exhibited enhanced responses to horizontal sound locations specifically during auditory tasks.

Conclusions:

The inferior parietal lobule (IPL) may not be primarily involved in stimulus-level spatial analysis.
IPL might be crucial for representing spatial auditory information for general processing during active auditory tasks.