Abstract:
Experiences with sound that make strong demands on the precision of perception, such as musical training and experience speaking a tone language, can enhance auditory neural encoding. Are high demands on the precision of perception necessary for training to drive auditory neural plasticity? Voice actors are an ideal subject population for answering this question. Voice acting requires exaggerating prosodic cues to convey emotion, character, and linguistic structure, drawing upon attention to sound, memory for sound features, and accurate sound production, but not fine perceptual precision. Here we assessed neural encoding of pitch using the frequency-following response (FFR), as well as prosody, music, and sound perception, in voice actors and a matched group of non-actors. We find that the consistency of neural sound encoding, prosody perception, and musical phrase perception are all enhanced in voice actors, suggesting that a range of neural and behavioural auditory processing enhancements can result from training which lacks fine perceptual precision. However, fine discrimination was not enhanced in voice actors but was linked to degree of musical experience, suggesting that low-level auditory processing can only be enhanced by demanding perceptual training. These findings suggest that training which taxes attention, memory, and production but is not perceptually taxing may be a way to boost neural encoding of sound and auditory pattern detection in individuals with poor auditory skills.
摘要:
对感知精度提出强烈要求的声音体验,比如音乐训练和体验说一种音调语言,可以增强听觉神经编码。训练以驱动听觉神经可塑性对感知精度的要求很高吗?配音演员是回答这个问题的理想对象。配音需要夸张的韵律线索来传达情感,字符,和语言结构,注意声音,记忆的声音功能,和准确的声音制作,但不是很好的感知精度。在这里,我们使用频率跟随响应(FFR)评估了音调的神经编码,以及韵律,音乐,和声音感知,配音演员和一组匹配的非演员。我们发现神经声音编码的一致性,韵律感知,在配音演员中,音乐短语的感知都得到了增强,这表明,一系列的神经和行为听觉处理增强可能是由于缺乏良好的感知精度的训练。然而,配音演员的精细歧视并没有得到加强,而是与音乐经验的程度有关,这表明低水平的听觉处理只能通过要求感知训练来增强。这些发现表明,值得关注的培训,记忆,和生产但不是感知上的负担可能是增强听觉技能差的个体的声音和听觉模式检测的神经编码的一种方法。