Organizational principles of multidimensional predictions in human auditory attention

Anticipating the future rests upon our ability to exploit contextual cues and to formulate valid internal models or predictions. It is currently unknown how multiple predictions combine to bias perceptual information processing, and in particular whether this is determined by physiological constraints, behavioral relevance (task demands), or past knowledge (perceptual expertise). In a series of behavioral auditory experiments involving musical experts and non-musicians, we investigated the respective and combined contribution of temporal and spectral predictions in multiple detection tasks. We show that temporal and spectral predictions alone systematically increase perceptual sensitivity, independently of task demands or expertise. When combined, however, spectral predictions benefit more to non-musicians and dominate over temporal ones, and the extent of the spectrotemporal synergistic interaction depends on task demands. This suggests that the hierarchy of dominance primarily reflects the tonotopic organization of the auditory system and that expertise or attention only have a secondary modulatory influence.