Given that both auditory and visual systems have anatomically separate object identification ("what") and spatial ("where") pathways, it is of interest whether attention-driven cross-sensory modulations occur separately within these feature domains. Here, we investigated how auditory "what" vs. "where" attention tasks modulate activity in visual pathways using cortically constrained source esti...

Although it is generally acknowledged that at least two processing streams exist in the primate cortical auditory system, the function of the posterior dorsal stream is a topic of much debate. Recent studies have reported selective activation to auditory spatial change in portions of the human planum temporale (PT) relative to nonspatial stimuli such as pitch changes or complex acoustic pattern...

Repeated exposure to an auditory stimulus leads to habituation of the electrophysiological and immediate-early-gene (IEG) expression response in the auditory system. A novel auditory stimulus reinstates this response in a form of dishabituation. This has been interpreted as the start of new memory formation for this novel stimulus. Changes in the location of an otherwise identical auditory stim...

Past multisensory experiences can influence current unisensory processing and memory performance. Repeated images are better discriminated if initially presented as auditory-visual pairs, rather than only visually. An experience's context thus plays a role in how well repetitions of certain aspects are later recognized. Here, we investigated factors during the initial multisensory experience th...

The mechanisms and functional anatomy underlying the early stages of speech perception are still not well understood. Auditory agnosia is a deficit of auditory object processing defined as a disability to recognize spoken languages and/or nonverbal environmental sounds and music despite adequate hearing while spontaneous speech, reading and writing are preserved. Usually, either the bilateral o...

A common complaint among listeners with hearing loss (HL) is that they have difficulty communicating in common social settings. This article reviews how normal-hearing listeners cope in such settings, especially how they focus attention on a source of interest. Results of experiments with normal-hearing listeners suggest that the ability to selectively attend depends on the ability to analyze t...

Information about the impending collision of an approaching object can be specified by visual and auditory means. We examined the discrimination thresholds for vision, audition, and vision/audition combined, in the processing of time-to-collision (TTC) of an approaching object. The stimulus consisted of a computer simulated car approaching on a flat ground towards the participants which disappe...

The human brain is thought to process auditory objects along a hierarchical temporal "what" stream that progressively abstracts object information from the low-level structure (e.g., loudness) as processing proceeds along the middle-to-anterior direction. Empirical demonstrations of abstract object encoding, independent of low-level structure, have relied on speech stimuli, and non-speech studi...

This study was designed to test whether associations between visual icons on a computer screen and auditory icons (environmental sounds that have a direct association with an object) or earcons (synthetic sounds that have no direct association with an object) are easier to learn. In addition, localization of sound presentation relative to the position of the icons on the screen was tested. Resu...

Auditory hallucinations are generally defined as false perceptions. Recent developments in auditory neuroscience have rapidly increased our understanding of normal auditory perception revealing (partially) separate pathways for the identification ("what") and localization ("where") of auditory objects. The current review offers a reexamination of the nature of auditory hallucinations in schizop...