title: Noise occlusion in discrete tone sequences as a tool towards auditory predictive processing?
abstract: The notion of predictive coding is a common feature of many theories of auditory information processing. Experimental demonstrations of predictive auditory processing often rest on omitting predictable input in order to uncover the prediction made by the brain. Findings show that auditory cortical activity elicited by the omission of a predictable tone resembles the activity elicited by the actual tone. Here we attempted to extend this approach towards using noises instead of omissions in order to capture a more prevalent case of degraded sensory input. By applying a subtraction approach to remove ERP effects of the noise itself, auditory cortical activity elicited "behind" the noise was uncovered. We hypothesized that ERPs elicited behind noise stimuli covering predictable tones should be more similar to ERPs elicited by the actual tones than when the same comparison is made for unpredictable tones. ERP results during passive listening partly confirm this hypothesis, but also point towards some methodological caveats in this particular approach towards studying neural correlates of predictive auditory processing due to contributions from predictability-unrelated factors. A follow-up active listening condition indicated that participants were not more likely to perceive the tone sequence as continuous when a predictable tone was covered with noise than when this pertained to an unpredictable tone. Overall, the noise-based paradigm in its present form was not shown to be successful in revealing predictive processing in perceptual judgments or early neural correlates of sound processing. We discuss these findings in the contexts of predictive processing and illusory auditory continuity. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of Leipzig, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany; Auditory Psychophysiology Lab, Department of Psychology, Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all", European Medical School, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany; Cognitive Systems Lab, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, D-09126 Chemnitz, Germany. Electronic address: alexandra.bendixen@uni-oldenburg.de.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bendixen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of Leipzig, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: susannduwe@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Susann
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duwe
authors.affiliation: Auditory Psychophysiology Lab, Department of Psychology, Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all", European Medical School, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany; Cognitive Systems Lab, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, D-09126 Chemnitz, Germany. Electronic address: martin.reiche@uni-oldenburg.de.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reiche
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D012107:Research Design; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Continuity illusion; Expectation; Human event-related potential (ERP); P50; Predictability