Stimulus expectancy modulates inferior frontal gyrus and premotor cortex activity in auditory perception

Brain Lang. 2012 Apr;121(1):65-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2012.02.002. Epub 2012 Feb 28.

Abstract

In studies on auditory speech perception, participants are often asked to perform active tasks, e.g. decide whether the perceived sound is a speech sound or not. However, information about the stimulus, inherent in such tasks, may induce expectations that cause altered activations not only in the auditory cortex, but also in frontal areas such as inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and motor cortices, even in the absence of an explicit task. To investigate this, we applied spectral mixes of a flute sound and either vowels or specific music instrument sounds (e.g. trumpet) in an fMRI study, in combination with three different instructions. The instructions either revealed no information about stimulus features, or explicit information about either the music instrument or the vowel features. The results demonstrated that, besides an involvement of posterior temporal areas, stimulus expectancy modulated in particular a network comprising IFG and premotor cortices during this passive listening task.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation*
  • Adult
  • Auditory Cortex / physiology*
  • Auditory Perception / physiology*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Frontal Lobe / physiology*
  • Functional Laterality / physiology
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Motor Cortex / physiology
  • Reference Values
  • Speech
  • Speech Perception / physiology
  • Young Adult