Eye Movements during Auditory Attention Predict Individual Differences in Dorsal Attention Network Activity

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Auditory Neuroscience

Background:

• The neural basis of auditory attention, particularly the role of the dorsal frontoparietal network, remains incompletely understood.
• This network, including the frontal eye fields (FEF) and superior parietal lobes (SPL), is implicated in spatial attention across senses and contains retinotopic maps.
• The recruitment of FEF and SPL during auditory attention may involve crossmodal oculomotor processes, but this requires experimental validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether eye movements evoked during an auditory task predict neural activity in the dorsal frontoparietal network.
• To determine if overt crossmodal oculomotor processes contribute to auditory attention.

Main Methods:

• Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and on-line eye-tracking during spatial and non-spatial auditory tasks.
• No visual stimuli or cues were presented to isolate auditory processing and associated eye movements.

Main Results:

• Auditory tasks elicited systematic eye movements, with saccade rate and gaze position correlating with attentional engagement and sound location, respectively.
• Activity related to evoked eye movements showed dissociation between the SPL and FEF.
• Observed eye movements did not fully explain the activation within the frontoparietal network.

Conclusions:

• Recruitment of the SPL and FEF during attentive listening partly reflects overt crossmodal oculomotor processes in non-visual attention.
• Further research is needed to clarify whether the remaining network activation involves covert crossmodal processes or direct auditory information manipulation.