Hearing and communication present various challenges for the nervous system. To be heard and to b... more Hearing and communication present various challenges for the nervous system. To be heard and to be understood , an auditory signal must first be transformed from a time-varying acoustic waveform into a perceptual representation (FIG.1). This is then converted to an abstract representation that combines the extracted information with information from memory stores and semantic information 1. Last, this abstract representation must be interpreted to guide the categorical decisions that determine behaviour. Did I hear the stimulus? From where and whom did it come? What does it tell me? How can I use this information to plan an action? There is broad agreement that the ventral auditory pathway — a pathway of brain regions that includes the core auditory cortex, the anterolateral belt region of the auditory cortex and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex — has a role in auditory-object processing and perception 2–5. However, no consensus has been reached on either the roles of different regions in this pathway in specific elements of auditory-object processing and perception or the contributions of particular cognitive states (such as attention) to the differential modulation of activity along this pathway. Here, we discuss how the brain transforms an acoustic-based representation of a stimulus into one that is object-based. We consider how object-related neural activity might emerge and how attention and behavioural state influence perception and neural activity. We also review what is known and, more importantly, what is unknown regarding the hierarchical flow and transformation of information along the ventral pathway. Finally, we focus on studies that relate neural activity to behaviour; reviews of work underlying perceptual correlates of audition in non-behaving animals can be found elsewhere 5–9 .
Hearing and communication present various challenges for the nervous system. To be heard and to b... more Hearing and communication present various challenges for the nervous system. To be heard and to be understood , an auditory signal must first be transformed from a time-varying acoustic waveform into a perceptual representation (FIG.1). This is then converted to an abstract representation that combines the extracted information with information from memory stores and semantic information 1. Last, this abstract representation must be interpreted to guide the categorical decisions that determine behaviour. Did I hear the stimulus? From where and whom did it come? What does it tell me? How can I use this information to plan an action? There is broad agreement that the ventral auditory pathway — a pathway of brain regions that includes the core auditory cortex, the anterolateral belt region of the auditory cortex and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex — has a role in auditory-object processing and perception 2–5. However, no consensus has been reached on either the roles of different regions in this pathway in specific elements of auditory-object processing and perception or the contributions of particular cognitive states (such as attention) to the differential modulation of activity along this pathway. Here, we discuss how the brain transforms an acoustic-based representation of a stimulus into one that is object-based. We consider how object-related neural activity might emerge and how attention and behavioural state influence perception and neural activity. We also review what is known and, more importantly, what is unknown regarding the hierarchical flow and transformation of information along the ventral pathway. Finally, we focus on studies that relate neural activity to behaviour; reviews of work underlying perceptual correlates of audition in non-behaving animals can be found elsewhere 5–9 .
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