Talkington William J, Donai Jeremy, Kadner Alexandra S, Layne Molly L, Forino Andrew, Wen Sijin, Gao Si, Gray Margeaux M, Ashraf Alexandria J, Valencia Gabriela N, Smith Brandon D, Khoo Stephanie K, Gray Stephen J, Lass Norman, Brefczynski-Lewis Julie A, Engdahl Susannah, Graham David, Frum Chris A, Lewis James W
Department of Neuroscience, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University, Morgantown.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Education and Human Services, West Virginia University, Morgantown.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020 Oct 16;63(10):3539-3559. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00063. Epub 2020 Sep 16.
Purpose From an anthropological perspective of hominin communication, the human auditory system likely evolved to enable special sensitivity to sounds produced by the vocal tracts of human conspecifics whether attended or passively heard. While numerous electrophysiological studies have used stereotypical human-produced verbal (speech voice and singing voice) and nonverbal vocalizations to identify human voice-sensitive responses, controversy remains as to when (and where) processing of acoustic signal attributes characteristic of "human voiceness" per se initiate in the brain. Method To explore this, we used animal vocalizations and human-mimicked versions of those calls ("mimic voice") to examine late auditory evoked potential responses in humans. Results Here, we revealed an N1b component (96-120 ms poststimulus) during a nonattending listening condition showing significantly greater magnitude in response to mimics, beginning as early as primary auditory cortices, preceding the time window reported in previous studies that revealed species-specific vocalization processing initiating in the range of 147-219 ms. During a sound discrimination task, a P600 (500-700 ms poststimulus) component showed specificity for accurate discrimination of human mimic voice. Distinct acoustic signal attributes and features of the stimuli were used in a classifier model, which could distinguish most human from animal voice comparably to behavioral data-though none of these single features could adequately distinguish human voiceness. Conclusions These results provide novel ideas for algorithms used in neuromimetic hearing aids, as well as direct electrophysiological support for a neurocognitive model of natural sound processing that informs both neurodevelopmental and anthropological models regarding the establishment of auditory communication systems in humans. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12903839.
目的 从古人类交流的人类学视角来看，人类听觉系统可能经过进化，从而对人类同种个体声道发出的声音具备特殊的敏感性，无论这些声音是主动倾听还是被动听到的。虽然众多电生理研究使用了人类产生的典型言语（语音和歌声）以及非言语发声来识别对人类声音敏感的反应，但关于大脑中“人类声音特质”本身的声学信号属性处理在何时（以及何处）开始，仍存在争议。方法 为了探究这一问题，我们使用动物叫声以及这些叫声的人类模仿版本（“模仿声音”）来检测人类的听觉诱发电位晚期反应。结果 在此，我们发现在非专注倾听条件下存在一个N1b成分（刺激后96 - 120毫秒），该成分对模仿声音的反应幅度显著更大，最早始于初级听觉皮层，早于先前研究报道的147 - 219毫秒范围内开始的物种特异性发声处理的时间窗。在声音辨别任务中，一个P600成分（刺激后500 - 700毫秒）对准确辨别人类模仿声音具有特异性。分类器模型使用了刺激的不同声学信号属性和特征，其能够像行为数据一样，将大多数人类声音与动物声音区分开来——尽管这些单一特征中没有一个能够充分区分人类声音特质。结论 这些结果为神经模拟助听器中使用的算法提供了新的思路，同时也为自然声音处理的神经认知模型提供了直接的电生理支持，该模型为神经发育和人类学模型提供了关于人类听觉通信系统建立的信息。补充材料 https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12903839 。
