Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-19-2021
Journal / Book Title
Frontiers in Neuroscience
Abstract
The efferent auditory nervous system may be a potent force in shaping how the brain responds to behaviorally significant sounds. Previous human experiments using the frequency following response (FFR) have shown efferent-induced modulation of subcortical auditory function online and over short- and long-term time scales; however, a contemporary understanding of FFR generation presents new questions about whether previous effects were constrained solely to the auditory subcortex. The present experiment used sine-wave speech (SWS), an acoustically-sparse stimulus in which dynamic pure tones represent speech formant contours, to evoke FFRSWS. Due to the higher stimulus frequencies used in SWS, this approach biased neural responses toward brainstem generators and allowed for three stimuli (/bɔ/, /bu/, and /bo/) to be used to evoke FFRSWSbefore and after listeners in a training group were made aware that they were hearing a degraded speech stimulus. All SWS stimuli were rapidly perceived as speech when presented with a SWS carrier phrase, and average token identification reached ceiling performance during a perceptual training phase. Compared to a control group which remained naïve throughout the experiment, training group FFRSWS amplitudes were enhanced post-training for each stimulus. Further, linear support vector machine classification of training group FFRSWS significantly improved post-training compared to the control group, indicating that training-induced neural enhancements were sufficient to bolster machine learning classification accuracy. These results suggest that the efferent auditory system may rapidly modulate auditory brainstem representation of sounds depending on their context and perception as non-speech or speech.
DOI
10.3389/fnins.2021.747303
Rights
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
Montclair State University Digital Commons Citation
Cheng, Fan-Yin; Xu, Can; Gold, Lisa; and Smith, Spencer, "Rapid Enhancement of Subcortical Neural Responses to Sine-Wave Speech" (2021). Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 193.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/communcsci-disorders-facpubs/193
Published Citation
Cheng F-Y, Xu C, Gold L and Smith S (2021) Rapid Enhancement of Subcortical Neural Responses to Sine-Wave Speech. Front. Neurosci. 15:747303. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.747303