Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées, 91220, Brétigny-sur-Orge, France.
CNRS, Ircam, Sorbonne Université, Ministère de la Culture, Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du son, STMS, 75004, Paris, France.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 13;11(1):956. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79767-0.
Auditory roughness elicits aversion, and higher activation in cerebral areas involved in threat processing, but its link with defensive behavior is unknown. Defensive behaviors are triggered by intrusions into the space immediately surrounding the body, called peripersonal space (PPS). Integrating multisensory information in PPS is crucial to assure the protection of the body. Here, we assessed the behavioral effects of roughness on auditory-tactile integration, which reflects the monitoring of this multisensory region of space. Healthy human participants had to detect as fast as possible a tactile stimulation delivered on their hand while an irrelevant sound was approaching them from the rear hemifield. The sound was either a simple harmonic sound or a rough sound, processed through binaural rendering so that the virtual sound source was looming towards participants. The rough sound speeded tactile reaction times at a farther distance from the body than the non-rough sound. This indicates that PPS, as estimated here via auditory-tactile integration, is sensitive to auditory roughness. Auditory roughness modifies the behavioral relevance of simple auditory events in relation to the body. Even without emotional or social contextual information, auditory roughness constitutes an innate threat cue that elicits defensive responses.
听觉粗糙度会引起厌恶，并且会使大脑中与威胁处理相关的区域更加活跃，但它与防御行为的联系尚不清楚。防御行为是由侵入身体周围的空间（称为近体空间）引起的。在近体空间中整合多感官信息对于确保身体的保护至关重要。在这里，我们评估了粗糙度对听觉-触觉整合的行为影响，这反映了对该多感官空间区域的监测。健康的人类参与者必须尽快检测到手上传来的触觉刺激，同时来自后半球的无关声音正在向他们逼近。声音要么是简单的谐波声音，要么是粗糙的声音，通过双耳渲染处理，以便虚拟声源向参与者逼近。与非粗糙声音相比，在离身体更远的距离处，粗糙声音会加速触觉反应时间。这表明，此处通过听觉-触觉整合估计的近体空间对听觉粗糙度敏感。听觉粗糙度会改变简单听觉事件与身体相关的行为相关性。即使没有情感或社交背景信息，听觉粗糙度也构成了一种先天的威胁线索，会引发防御反应。
