Do you hear what i see?

This study confirms a number of recent findings but contradicts classical thinking, in which hearing, taste, touch, sight, and smell are each processed in distinct areas of the brain and only later integrated. The new research, led by Christoph Kayser, PhD, at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, was published in the February 21 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

"This study confirms that what we used to call the ‘auditory cortex’ should really be thought of as much more complex in terms of its response properties," says Robert Zatorre, PhD, head of the auditory cognitive neuroscience laboratory at McGill University. "The textbook-standard view of sensory systems as isolated from one another is no longer tenable." Zatorre did not participate in the study.

Kayser’s team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to draw a map of 11 small, tightly packed fields in the monkeys’ auditory cortex that differ by the frequency of sound they process. Scans recorded activity in the monkeys’ brains while they watched a video, with and without sound, and listened separately to the accompanying sound. The researchers found that fields in the hindmost part of the auditory cortex showed activity when the monkeys watched the video without sound, and activity was enhanced when the video was presented simultaneously with the sound.

"This finding suggests that sensory integration, which is so fundamental to complex mental activity, takes place at very early processing stages," says Daniel Tranel, PhD, of the University of Iowa, who is not affiliated with the study. "This knowledge could help scientists pinpoint sources of extraordinary sensory processing, such as creativity and genius, as well as abnormal sensory processing, as seen in schizophrenia."

Kayser notes that the findings also could be used to reveal the role of audio-visual integration in communication or to help pin down where sounds are coming from. "Clearly, our acoustical understanding often improves if we can see the lips of the speaker—for example at a crowded cocktail party," he says. "However, currently it is not clear whether and how audio-visual interactions are specialized for the processing of communication signals. "The present study clearly shows where in the auditory system researchers have to focus."

Source: Society for Neuroscience

What It's Like to Be a Bat
Not many people think about what it's like to be a bat, but for those who do, it's enlightening and potentially groundbreaking for understanding aspects of the human brain and nervous system.
Sight Recovery After Blindness Offers New Insights on Brain Reorganization
Studies of the brains of blind persons whose sight was partially restored later in life have produced a compelling example of the brain's ability to adapt to new circumstances and rewire and reconfigure itself.
Study Captures Brain's Activity Processing Speech
Rad, Lad. You might be able to hear the difference, but to many children and adults, these words sound exactly the same. The problem isn’t that they can’t hear the sounds. The problem is that they can’t tell them apart.
Impairments in language development can be detected in infants as young as 3 months
Uncover how the brains of infants distinguish differences in sounds and it may become possible to correct language problems even before children start to speak, sparing them the difficulties that come from struggling with language.
Humans have more distinctive hearing than animals, study shows
Do humans hear better than animals? It is known that various species of land and water-based living creatures are capable of hearing some lower and higher frequencies than humans are capable of detecting. However, scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere have now for the first time demonstrated how the reactions of single neurons give humans the capability of detecting fine differences in frequencies better than animals.
Linguist tunes in to pitch processing in brain
More of the brain is busy processing pitch from language and other sounds than previously thought, according to a researcher in neurophonetics at Purdue University.
Innovations in Robotics and Automation: Focus IEEE & UC Berkeley
Current research in the field of robotics and automation is an area that holds great promise in man's ecological system. Professor Ken Goldberg, Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California at Berkeley, is the Vice President of IEEE Robotics and Automation, Technical Activities.
Mapping the selective brain
Researchers have added a new piece to the puzzle of how the brain selectively amplifies those distinctions that matter most from the continuous cascade of sights, sounds, and other sensory input. Whether recognizing a glowering face among smiling ones or the unmistakable sound of a spouse calling one’s name, such “categorical perception” is central to sensory function.

Do you hear what i see?

Related stories:

News discussion: