Brain systems mediating voice identity processing in blind humans

Learning-induced changes in the cerebral processing of voice identity.

Temporal voice areas showing a larger activity for vocal than non-vocal sounds have been identified along the superior temporal sulcus (STS); more voice-sensitive areas have been described in frontal and parietal lobes. Yet, the role of voice-sensitive regions in representing voice identity remains unclear. Using a functional magnetic resonance adaptation design, we aimed at disentangling acous...

The processing of voice identity in developmental prosopagnosia.

BACKGROUND Developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder of face recognition that is believed to reflect impairments of visual mechanisms. However, voice recognition has rarely been evaluated in developmental prosopagnosia to clarify if it is modality-specific or part of a multi-modal person recognition syndrome. OBJECTIVE Our goal was to examine whether voice discrimination and/or recognition ar...

Brain mechanisms mediating auditory attentional capture in humans.

The ability to detect and preferentially process salient auditory stimuli, even when irrelevant to a current task, is often critical for adaptive behavior. This stimulus-driven allocation of processing resources is known as "attentional capture." Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans to investigate brain activity and behavioral effects related to such auditory attentional...

Obligatory and facultative brain regions for voice-identity recognition

Recognizing the identity of others by their voice is an important skill for social interactions. To date, it remains controversial which parts of the brain are critical structures for this skill. Based on neuroimaging findings, standard models of person-identity recognition suggest that the right temporal lobe is the hub for voice-identity recognition. Neuropsychological case studies, however, ...

Spatial processing of touch in sighted and congenitally blind humans