Asymmetric performances in binaural localization of sound in space

doi:10.1016/0028-3932(94)00074-3

Neuropsychologia

Volume 32, Issue 11, November 1994, Pages 1409-1417

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(94)00074-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

Twenty right-handers and 20 left-handers were tested on a sound localization task. Broadband noise was presented from either the left or right hemifield. Localization accuracy was significantly greater (P = 0.002) when sounds emanated from the left hemifield thereby suggesting a paramount role played by the right hemisphere. Correcting for front-rear reversals, attributable to impoverished spectral cues and/or faulty processing of such cues, rendered differences in error scores linked to hemifield nonsignificant. The data were interpreted to mean that the special contribution of the right hemisphere to this task was its greater fidelity in processing spectral cues. No differences in localization proficiency between right- and left-handers were observed.

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This is also compatible with the opponent-channel model (Stecker et al., 2005), which predicts that sound location is calculated based on a difference of contra- and ipsilaterally tuned neural channels and assumes that both contralateral and ipsilateral channels are present within each hemisphere. Interestingly, the comparison of decoding performance between hemispheres did not reveal any significant lateralization, which is in contrast with a number of studies that suggested a larger involvement of right hemisphere in auditory localization (Burke et al., 1994; Kaiser et al., 2000; Zatorre and Penhune, 2001; Palomaki et al., 2005). However, our lack of any inter hemispheric differences may be due to the limited spatial sensitivity of our approach.
It is of increasing practical interest to be able to decode the spatial characteristics of an auditory scene from electrophysiological signals. However, the cortical representation of auditory space is not well characterized, and it is unclear how cortical activity reflects the time-varying location of a moving sound. Recently, we demonstrated that cortical response measures to discrete noise bursts can be decoded to determine their origin in space. Here we build on these findings to investigate the cortical representation of a continuously moving auditory stimulus using scalp recorded electroencephalography (EEG).
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In a follow-up experiment, we replaced the noise with pulse train stimuli containing only interaural level and time differences (ILDs and ITDs respectively). This allowed us to investigate whether our trajectory decoding is sensitive to both acoustic cues. We found that the sound trajectory can be decoded for both ILD and ITD stimuli. Moreover, their neural signatures were similar and even allowed successful cross-cue classification. This supports the notion of integrated processing of ILD and ITD at the cortical level. These results are particularly relevant for application in devices such as cognitively controlled hearing aids and for the evaluation of virtual acoustic environments.
Effects of sex and age on auditory spatial scene analysis
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If so, the asymmetry should be interpreted in terms of higher-order spatial attention. Studies using young adults that employed audiospatial tasks with single sound sources have revealed a left-hemispace advantage, e.g., for localization (Abel et al., 2000; Burke et al., 1994) or motion perception (Hirnstein et al., 2007). Such asymmetries have been related to the superiority of the right cortical hemisphere in auditory spatial processing (Griffiths et al., 1998; Kaiser et al., 2000; Kreitewolf et al., 2011).
Recently, it has been demonstrated that men outperform women in spatial analysis of complex auditory scenes (Zündorf et al., 2011). The present study investigated the relation between the effects of ageing and sex on the spatial segregation of concurrent sounds in younger and middle-aged adults. The experimental design allowed simultaneous presentation of target and distractor sound sources at different locations. The resulting spatial "pulling" effect (that is, the bias of target localization toward that of the distractor) was used as a measure of performance. The pulling effect was stronger in middle-aged than younger subjects, and female than male subjects. This indicates lower performance of the middle-aged women in the sensory and attentional mechanisms extracting spatial information about the acoustic event of interest from the auditory scene than both younger and male subjects. Moreover, age-specific differences were most prominent for conditions with targets in right hemispace and distractors in left hemispace, suggesting bilateral asymmetries underlying the effect of ageing.
Neural correlates of sound externalization
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Considering that front/back localization cues are only available for the BR stimuli, better performance for the BR stimuli was to be expected. More accurate performance for the left sound sources on the BR condition was consistent with a previous behavioral study (Burke et al., 1994) supporting right hemispheric dominance in auditory localization. In our second experiment using the sound-type identification task, the behavioral results showed that, on average, participants could classify the three recording methods.
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Auditory space perception in left- and right-handers
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Several studies have shown that handedness has an impact on visual spatial abilities. Here we investigated the effect of laterality on auditory space perception. Participants (33 right-handers, 20 left-handers) completed two tasks of sound localization. In a dark, anechoic, and sound-proof room, sound stimuli (broadband noise) were presented via 21 loudspeakers mounted horizontally (from 80° on the left to 80° on the right). Participants had to localize the target either by using a swivel hand-pointer or by head-pointing. Individual lateral preferences of eye, ear, hand, and foot were obtained using a questionnaire. With both pointing methods, participants showed a bias in sound localization that was to the side contralateral to the preferred hand, an effect that was unrelated to their overall precision. This partially parallels findings in the visual modality as left-handers typically have a more rightward bias in visual line bisection compared with right-handers. Despite the differences in neural processing of auditory and visual spatial information these findings show similar effects of lateral preference on auditory and visual spatial perception. This suggests that supramodal neural processes are involved in the mechanisms generating laterality in space perception.
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The number of subjects in studies on human spatial hearing is generally small. Therefore, individual differences and the factors underlying variability are unknown. In this study, we investigated across-listener variability in auditory localization abilities in a group of 50 naïve adults with normal hearing. Targets were trains of low-frequency noise bursts presented to 1 of 12 hidden speakers in the azimuthal plane. We observed less across-listener variability in the variance of individual responses but more in the root-mean-square and signed errors, which tended to increase with target angle. One third of the listeners demonstrated systematically smaller signed errors with left-sided targets than with right-sided ones. These asymmetries were observed less frequently in left-handers and females than in right-handers and males. Performance was not correlated with age. About 4 of 6 listeners trained with sensory feedback showed no reduction of asymmetries with training but rather showed a reduction in errors on their “best” side. Across-listener variability in the asymmetry of brain organization, notably linked to handedness or gender, is discussed.
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The detection of interaural time differences (ITD) for sound localization depends on the similarity between the left and right ear signals, namely interaural correlation (IAC). Human localization performance deteriorates with decreasing IACs. In order to examine activity related to localization performance in the human cortex, auditory evoked magnetic fields to the ITD of bandpass noises with different IACs were analyzed. When the IAC was 0.95, the N1m amplitudes, i.e., the estimated equivalent current dipole moments, increased with increasing ITD. However the effect of ITD on the N1m amplitudes was not significant when the IAC was 0.5. When the ITD was 0.7 ms, the N1m amplitudes decreased with decreasing IACs. There were no systematic changes in the source location of N1m in the auditory cortex related to changes in ITD or IAC. The results suggest that localization performance is reflected in N1m amplitudes.

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Asymmetric performances in binaural localization of sound in space

Abstract

Neuropsychologia

Brain Lang.

Hear. Res.

Cortex

Brain Lang.

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Brain Lang.

Role of spectral cues in median plane localization

J. Acoust. Soc. Am.

Sound localization in the median plane

Acustica

The nature of hemispheric specialization in man

Behav. Brain Sci.

Localization of sound in the vertical plane with and without high-frequency spectral cues

Percept. Psychophys.

Binaural and monaural localization of sound in two-dimensional space

Perception

Sound localization: Effects of unilateral lesions in central auditory system

J. Neurophysiol.