Rotman Research Institute, Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Rotman Research Institute, Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Neuroimage. 2020 Sep;218:116979. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116979. Epub 2020 May 21.
Auditory long-term memory has been shown to facilitate signal detection. However, the nature and timing of the cognitive processes supporting such benefits remain equivocal. We measured neuroelectric brain activity while young adults were presented with a contextual memory cue designed to assist with the detection of a faint pure tone target embedded in an audio clip of an everyday environmental scene (e.g., the soundtrack of a restaurant). During an initial familiarization task, participants heard such audio clips, half of which included a target sound (memory cue trials) at a specific time and location (left or right ear), as well as audio clips without a target (neutral trials). Following a 1-h or 24-h retention interval, the same audio clips were presented, but now all included a target. Participants were asked to press a button as soon as they heard the pure tone target. Overall, participants were faster and more accurate during memory than neutral cue trials. The auditory contextual memory effects on performance coincided with three temporally and spatially distinct neural modulations, which encompassed changes in the amplitude of event-related potential as well as changes in theta, alpha, beta and gamma power. Brain electrical source analyses revealed greater source activity in memory than neutral cue trials in the right superior temporal gyrus and left parietal cortex. Conversely, neutral trials were associated with greater source activity than memory cue trials in the left posterior medial temporal lobe. Target detection was associated with increased negativity (N2), and a late positive (P3b) wave at frontal and parietal sites, respectively. The effect of auditory contextual memory on brain activity preceding target onset showed little lateralization. Together, these results are consistent with contextual memory facilitating retrieval of target-context associations and deployment and management of auditory attentional resources to when the target occurred. The results also suggest that the auditory cortices, parietal cortex, and medial temporal lobe may be parts of a neural network enabling memory-guided attention during auditory scene analysis.
听觉长期记忆已被证明有助于信号检测。然而，支持这些益处的认知过程的性质和时间仍存在争议。我们测量了年轻人的神经电脑活动，他们接受了一种上下文记忆提示，旨在帮助检测嵌入日常环境场景音频剪辑（例如，餐厅的背景音乐）中的微弱纯音目标。在初始熟悉任务中，参与者听到了这些音频剪辑，其中一半包含了一个目标声音（记忆提示试验）在特定的时间和位置（左耳或右耳），以及没有目标的音频剪辑（中性试验）。在 1 小时或 24 小时的保留间隔后，呈现相同的音频剪辑，但现在都包含了一个目标。参与者被要求一听到纯音目标就按下按钮。总的来说，参与者在记忆提示试验中的反应速度比中性提示试验更快，准确性更高。听觉上下文记忆对性能的影响与三个时间和空间上不同的神经调制一致，包括事件相关电位幅度的变化以及 theta、alpha、beta 和 gamma 功率的变化。脑电源分析显示，在右颞上回和左顶叶皮层，记忆提示试验的源活动大于中性提示试验。相反，在左后内侧颞叶，中性试验的源活动大于记忆提示试验。目标检测与额部和顶叶部位的负性（N2）和晚期正性（P3b）波的增加有关。听觉上下文记忆对目标出现前脑活动的影响几乎没有偏侧化。总的来说，这些结果与上下文记忆有助于检索目标-上下文关联以及部署和管理听觉注意力资源相一致，以便目标出现。结果还表明，听觉皮层、顶叶皮层和内侧颞叶可能是一个神经网络的一部分，该网络可在听觉场景分析中实现记忆引导的注意力。
