Perceptual and Conceptual Priming of Environmental Sounds

It is still unknown whether sonic environments influence the processing of individual sounds in a similar way as discourse or sentence context influences the processing of individual words. One obstacle to answering this question has been the failure to dissociate perceptual (i.e., how similar are sonic environment and target sound?) and conceptual (i.e., how related are sonic environment and target?) priming effects. In this study, we dissociate these effects by creating prime–target pairs with a purely perceptual or both a perceptual and conceptual relationship. Perceptual prime–target pairs were derived from perceptual–conceptual pairs (i.e., meaningful environmental sounds) by shuffling the spectral composition of primes and targets so as to preserve their perceptual relationship while making them unrecognizable. Hearing both original and shuffled targets elicited a more positive N1/P2 complex in the ERP when targets were related to a preceding prime as compared with unrelated. Only related original targets reduced the N400 amplitude. Related shuffled targets tended to decrease the amplitude of a late temporo-parietal positivity. Taken together, these effects indicate that sonic environments influence first the perceptual and then the conceptual processing of individual sounds. Moreover, the influence on conceptual processing is comparable to the influence linguistic context has on the processing of individual words.

[1]  A. Friederici,et al.  Music, language and meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[2]  E. Schröger,et al.  The influence of stimulus intensity and inter-stimulus interval on the detection of pitch and loudness changes. , 1996, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[3]  E Schröger,et al.  The influence of stimulus intensity and inter-stimulus interval on the detection of pitch and loudness changes , 1996 .

[4]  Martha J. Farah,et al.  Category-specificity and modality-specificity in semantic memory , 1989, Neuropsychologia.

[5]  Guillaume Thierry,et al.  Hemispheric Dissociation in Access to the Human Semantic System , 2003, Neuron.

[6]  M. Farah,et al.  A neural basis for category and modality specificity of semantic knowledge , 1999, Neuropsychologia.

[7]  S. Pinker,et al.  The faculty of language: what's special about it? , 2005, Cognition.

[8]  Elizabeth Bates,et al.  Separate neural systems for processing action- or non-action-related sounds , 2005, NeuroImage.

[9]  Stefan Debener,et al.  Multisensory identification of natural objects in a two-way crossmodal priming paradigm. , 2008, Experimental psychology.

[10]  D. Schön,et al.  The music of speech: music training facilitates pitch processing in both music and language. , 2004, Psychophysiology.

[11]  F. Dick,et al.  Neural resources for processing language and environmental sounds: evidence from aphasia. , 2003, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[12]  René van Egmond,et al.  The effect of visual context on the identification of ambiguous environmental sounds , 2009 .

[13]  J. Polich.  Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b , 2007, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[14]  M. Kutas,et al.  Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. , 1980, Science.

[15]  Guido Orgs,et al.  N400-effects to task-irrelevant environmental sounds: Further evidence for obligatory conceptual processing , 2008, Neuroscience Letters.

[16]  Effects of Context on the Identification of Everyday Sounds , 1991 .

[17]  Annett Schirmer,et al.  Timing speech: a review of lesion and neuroimaging findings. , 2004, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[18]  Richard Kronland-Martinet,et al.  The Evocative Power of Sounds: Conceptual Priming between Words and Nonverbal Sounds , 2010, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[19]  Guido Orgs,et al.  Conceptual priming for environmental sounds and words: An ERP study , 2006, Brain and Cognition.

[20]  Dylan M. Jones,et al.  Priming the Identification of Environmental Sounds , 1995, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[21]  Ava J. Senkfor,et al.  Electrophysiological dissociation between verbal and nonverbal semantic processing in learning disabled adults , 2000, Neuropsychologia.

[22]  Michael T. Ullman,et al.  Double dissociation between rules and memory in music: An event-related potential study , 2007, NeuroImage.

[23]  Jérôme Daltrozzo,et al.  Conceptual Processing in Music as Revealed by N400 Effects on Words and Musical Targets , 2009, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[24]  Tae Park.  Introduction to Digital Signal Processing: Musically Speaking , 2010 .

[25]  Gaspare Galati,et al.  A selective representation of the meaning of actions in the auditory mirror system , 2008, NeuroImage.

[26]  Kathy A. Low,et al.  Latent inhibition mediates N1 attenuation to repeating sounds. , 2004, Psychophysiology.

[27]  J. Townsend,et al.  Auditory semantic networks for words and natural sounds , 2006, Brain Research.

[28]  J. Ballas.  Common factors in the identification of an assortment of brief everyday sounds , 1993 .

[29]  Jochen Kaiser,et al.  Selectivity for animal vocalizations in the human auditory cortex. , 2007, Cerebral cortex.

[30]  H. Neville,et al.  Language and , 2019, Adventure Diffusion.

[31]  E. Schröger,et al.  Familiarity affects environmental sound processing outside the focus of attention: An event-related potential study , 2009, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[32]  Daniel L. Schacter,et al.  Auditory Priming for Nonverbal Information: Implicit and Explicit Memory for Environmental Sounds , 1995, Consciousness and Cognition.

[33]  Tae Hong Park.  Introduction to digital signal processing - Computer Musically Speaking , 2009 .

[34]  C Y Chiu,et al.  Specificity of auditory implicit and explicit memory: is perceptual priming for environmental sounds exemplar specific? , 2000, Memory & cognition.

[35]  Annett Schirmer,et al.  Vocal emotions influence verbal memory: Neural correlates and interindividual differences , 2013, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[36]  Annett Schirmer,et al.  What grabs his attention but not hers? Estrogen correlates with neurophysiological measures of vocal change detection , 2008, Psychoneuroendocrinology.

[37]  C. Petten,et al.  Conceptual relationships between spoken words and environmental sounds: Event-related brain potential measures , 1995, Neuropsychologia.

[38]  Daniel Lenz,et al.  What's that sound? Matches with auditory long-term memory induce gamma activity in human EEG. , 2007, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[39]  John O'Gorman,et al.  Neurophysiological indices of perceptual object priming in the absence of explicit recognition memory. , 2009, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[40]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  The effect of prior visual information on recognition of speech and sounds. , 2008, Cerebral cortex.

[41]  Guido Orgs,et al.  Is conceptual priming for environmental sounds obligatory? , 2007, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[42]  Ayse Pinar Saygin,et al.  What is Involved and What is Necessary for Complex Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Auditory Processing: Evidence from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Lesion Data , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[43]  A. Friederici,et al.  Brain Indices of Music Processing: Nonmusicians are Musical , 2000, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[44]  Ayse Pinar Saygin,et al.  Nonverbal auditory agnosia with lesion to Wernicke's area , 2010, Neuropsychologia.

[45]  G Hickok,et al.  Role of anterior temporal cortex in auditory sentence comprehension: an fMRI study , 2001, Neuroreport.

[46]  C. Spence,et al.  When hearing the bark helps to identify the dog: Semantically-congruent sounds modulate the identification of masked pictures , 2010, Cognition.

[47]  Ayse Pinar Saygin,et al.  The effects of linguistic mediation on the identification of environmental sounds , 2002 .

[48]  Arnaud Delorme,et al.  EEGLAB: an open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis , 2004, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[49]  David Friedman,et al.  Cross-form conceptual relations between sounds and words: effects on the novelty P3. , 2003, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.