Auditory perceptual objects as generative models: Setting the stage for communication by sound

• Published in: Brain and language 2015-09, Vol.148, p.1-22
• Main Authors: Winkler, István, Schröger, Erich
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Audition; Auditory object; Auditory Perception - physiology; Auditory scene analysis; Cognition; Communication; Deviance (irregularity) detection; Humans; Models, Biological; Prediction; Predictive modeling; Sound; Speech; Speech - physiology; Streaming; Time Factors
• ISSN: 0093-934X; 1090-2155
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2015.05.003

•The auditory system has to discover the distal sounds sources (objects) and to detect potentially important sounds.•Regularity representations form the core of auditory perceptual objects/streams/communication channels.•Speech is one of many possible communication channels.•Concurrently active sound sources have to be separated and monitored. Communication by sounds requires that the communication channels (i.e. speech/speakers and other sound sources) had been established. This allows to separate concurrently active sound sources, to track their identity, to assess the type of message arriving from them, and to decide whether and when to react (e.g., reply to the message). We propose that these functions rely on a common generative model of the auditory environment. This model predicts upcoming sounds on the basis of representations describing temporal/sequential regularities. Predictions help to identify the continuation of the previously discovered sound sources to detect the emergence of new sources as well as changes in the behavior of the known ones. It produces auditory event representations which provide a full sensory description of the sounds, including their relation to the auditory context and the current goals of the organism. Event representations can be consciously perceived and serve as objects in various cognitive operations.