title: Auditory brainstem's sensitivity to human voices.
abstract: Differentiating between voices is a basic social skill humans acquire early in life. The current study aimed to understand the subcortical mechanisms of voice processing by focusing on the two most important acoustical voice features: the fundamental frequency (F0) and harmonics. We measured frequency following responses in a group of young adults to a naturally produced speech syllable under two linguistic contexts: same-syllable and multiple-syllable. Compared to the same-syllable context, the multiple-syllable context contained more speech cues to aid voice processing. We analyzed the magnitude of the response to the F0 and harmonics between same-talker and multiple-talker conditions within each linguistic context. Results establish that the human auditory brainstem is sensitive to different talkers as shown by enhanced harmonic responses under the multiple-talker compared to the same-talker condition, when the stimulus stream contained multiple syllables. This study thus provides the first electrophysiological evidence of the auditory brainstem's sensitivity to human voices.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, 100875, China. Electronic address: nany@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nan
authors.affiliation: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, United States; Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06209, United States. Electronic address: http://skoe.slhs.uconn.edu.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Skoe
authors.affiliation: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, United States. Electronic address: http://www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Trent
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nicol
authors.affiliation: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, United States; Departments of Neurobiology and Physiology and Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, United States. Electronic address: http://www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kraus
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004569:Electroencephalography; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory brainstem; Frequency following response; Voice