Impacts of auditory perceptual learning that extend beyond perception: working memory skills and cortical dynamics

Kansas State University, Manhattan KS

Investigators

Abstract

How we hear the world changes with experience. This auditory perceptual learning can have a heavy psychological influence by modifying the nature of sound's contribution to many subsequent cognitive skills (e.g., multitasking ability, musical aptitude, listening in classrooms, etc.). The impacts of auditory perceptual learning on these skills and on brain activity in regions outside of auditory cortex are under investigated. This project aims to resolve this by training listeners to hear acute differences in sounds and then testing them on their ability to control memory of those sounds under varying circumstances of distraction and multitasking. By measuring brain waves during testing, the project aims to examine how changes in the brain from auditory training relate to the impact of auditory perceptual learning on memory performance. The broader impacts include plans for hackathon events tailored to promote methodological skill development among an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty scholars. Plans also include a STEM education workshop for middle-school aged girls in Kansas. In the planned studies, human listeners are trained to distinguish a "Target" frequency modulated sound from morphed versions of that target. An untrained target sound is used for later testing comparison. Study 1 plans to measure auditory perceptual learning's impact on the decay of working memory representations by comparing listeners' ability to reproduce trained and untrained sounds from memory using a digital musical instrument. Study 2 plans to measure the susceptibility of trained and untrained sounds to interference during retention. Study 3 plans to use trained and untrained sounds as interference stimuli to determine how auditory perceptual learning affects the ability to inhibit their processing. Study 4 plans to address differences in mental effort needed to retain trained and untrained sounds in working memory through analyses of oscillatory electroencephalography (EEG) activity. Classic representational reweighting perceptual learning theories predict worse working memory fidelity, stronger inhibition, and more listening effort for trained compared to untrained sounds because of the need of attention and/or associative resources for learned increases in perceptual acuity. In contrast, representational plasticity theories predict that increases in the fidelity of sound representations will facilitate working memory processing of trained sounds. Study 5 plans to analyze high-density EEG data to reveal plasticity in the dynamics of distinct auditory and non-auditory brain sources. Study 6 plans to follow this exploratory step with a pre-registered replication that includes additional MRI informed head modeling to increase EEG source localization accuracy. The overall goal is to provide an extensive examination of how auditory perceptual learning impacts working memory and distributed cortical dynamics. This project is jointly funded by the Science of Learning and Augmented Intelligence Program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Perception, Action, and Cognition Program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.