The auditory enhancement effect is not reflected in the 80-Hz auditory steady-state response.
JARO. 2014-05-21; 15(4): 621-630
DOI: 10.1007/s10162-014-0455-y
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1. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2014 Aug;15(4):621-30. doi: 10.1007/s10162-014-0455-y.
Epub 2014 May 21.
The auditory enhancement effect is not reflected in the 80-Hz auditory
steady-state response.
Carcagno S(1), Plack CJ, Portron A, Semal C, Demany L.
Author information:
(1)Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, Université
de Bordeaux and CNRS, Bordeaux, France, .
Erratum in
J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2014 Aug;15(4):631.
The perceptual salience of a target tone presented in a multitone background is
increased by the presentation of a precursor sound consisting of the multitone
background alone. It has been proposed that this “enhancement” phenomenon results
from an effective amplification of the neural response to the target tone. In
this study, we tested this hypothesis in humans, by comparing the auditory
steady-state response (ASSR) to a target tone that was enhanced by a precursor
sound with the ASSR to a target tone that was not enhanced. In order to record
neural responses originating in the brainstem, the ASSR was elicited by amplitude
modulating the target tone at a frequency close to 80 Hz. The results did not
show evidence of an amplified neural response to enhanced tones. In a control
condition, we measured the ASSR to a target tone that, instead of being
perceptually enhanced by a precursor sound, was acoustically increased in level.
This level increase matched the magnitude of enhancement estimated
psychophysically with a forward masking paradigm in a previous experimental
phase. We found that the ASSR to the tone acoustically increased in level was
significantly greater than the ASSR to the tone enhanced by the precursor sound.
Overall, our results suggest that the enhancement effect cannot be explained by
an amplified neural response at the level of the brainstem. However, an
alternative possibility is that brainstem neurons with enhanced responses do not
contribute to the scalp-recorded ASSR.
DOI: 10.1007/s10162-014-0455-y
PMCID: PMC4141439
PMID: 24845402 [Indexed for MEDLINE]