Selective suppression of self-initiated sounds in an auditory stream. An EEG-study
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1
University of Leipzig, Germany
One of the most important human cognitive functions is the ability to discriminate the sensory consequences of one’s own actions from sensory events originating from other sources. One way to explain how this is realized in the brain is through the concept of the internal forward model (see e.g., Wolpert & Ghahramani, 2000). According to this model, for each action, a prediction about its sensory consequences is generated. If the re-afferent sensory information matches the prediction, the impact of the sensory information is attenuated or even completely eliminated. In the auditory domain, the existence of such a mechanism is supported by a number of psychophysiological studies, which found attenuated cortical brain responses to self-initiated sounds compared to externally initiated sounds around 100 ms after sound onset (Bäß et al, in revision; Martikainen et al, 2005; McCarthy & Donchin, 1976; Schäfer & Marcus, 1973). In these studies, brain responses to tones were recorded in 1) a condition where participants self-initiated the presentation of each tone (controlled solely for motor activity) and 2) the exact replay of the auditory stimulation from the self-initiated sequence, without any motor task. However, because of the blocked design, it remained unclear whether the attenuated brain responses to self-initiated sounds were attributable to self-initiation, or to some other difference (e.g. task-demands) between the different conditions. Therefore, in the present study, we recorded human EEG in a condition in which self-initiated and external sounds were mixed (“mixed” condition). A condition in which participants self-initiated the presentation of each tone was also added (“completely self-initiated” condition), similarly to the previous studies mentioned above. Our results showed that in the mixed condition, only the self-initiated sounds but not the external sounds were attenuated. Further, the brain responses were more attenuated in the “mixed”, than in the “completely self-initiated” condition. This is in line with the internal forward model assumptions. In a stream of sounds with different origin, the comparison process has to be more accurate. In contrast, in the “completely self-initiated” condition, the underlying comparison-process needs to be less accurate for the self-initiated sounds. Thus, the internal forward model mechanism in auditory perception seems to be flexible in regard to the environmental context.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Baess
P,
Horváth
J,
Jacobsen
T and
Schröger
E
(2008). Selective suppression of self-initiated sounds in an auditory stream. An EEG-study.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.095
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Received:
02 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
02 Dec 2008.
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Correspondence:
Pamela Baess, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, baess@uni-leipzig.de