title: Testing multi-scale processing in the auditory system.
abstract: Natural sounds contain information on multiple timescales, so the auditory system must analyze and integrate acoustic information on those different scales to extract behaviorally relevant information. However, this multi-scale process in the auditory system is not widely investigated in the literature, and existing models of temporal integration are mainly built upon detection or recognition tasks on a single timescale. Here we use a paradigm requiring processing on relatively 'local' and 'global' scales and provide evidence suggesting that the auditory system extracts fine-detail acoustic information using short temporal windows and uses long temporal windows to abstract global acoustic patterns. Behavioral task performance that requires processing fine-detail information does not improve with longer stimulus length, contrary to predictions of previous temporal integration models such as the multiple-looks and the spectro-temporal excitation pattern model. Moreover, the perceptual construction of putatively 'unitary' auditory events requires more than hundreds of milliseconds. These findings support the hypothesis of a dual-scale processing likely implemented in the auditory cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Xiangbin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Teng
authors.affiliation: New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, 200122 China.|NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, 200122 China.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.|Department of Neuroscience, Max-Planck Institute, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Poeppel
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D008960:Models, Psychological; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult