title: Temporal Integration of Auditory Information Is Invariant to Temporal Grouping Cues
abstract: Auditory perception depends on the temporal structure of incoming acoustic stimuli. Here, we examined whether a temporal manipulation that affects the perceptual grouping also affects the time dependence of decisions regarding those stimuli. We designed a novel discrimination task that required human listeners to decide whether a sequence of tone bursts was increasing or decreasing in frequency. We manipulated temporal perceptual-grouping cues by changing the time interval between the tone bursts, which led to listeners hearing the sequences as a single sound for short intervals or discrete sounds for longer intervals. Despite these strong perceptual differences, this manipulation did not affect the efficiency of how auditory information was integrated over time to form a decision. Instead, the grouping manipulation affected subjects' speed-accuracy trade-offs. These results indicate that the temporal dynamics of evidence accumulation for auditory perceptual decisions can be invariant to manipulations that affect the perceptual grouping of the evidence.
authors.affiliation: Bioengineering Graduate Group.
authors.forename: Andrew S K
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Perelman School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Joji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tsunada
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.
authors.forename: Joshua I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Gold
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Perelman School of Medicine ; Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.
authors.forename: Yale E
authors.initials: YE
authors.lastname: Cohen
keywords: auditory cortex; decision-making; scene analysis; speed-accuracy tradeoff; streaming