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Cortical mechanisms of spatial hearing

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 20, pages 609–623 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Humans and other animals use spatial hearing to rapidly localize events in the environment. However, neural encoding of sound location is a complex process involving the computation and integration of multiple spatial cues that are not represented directly in the sensory organ (the cochlea). Our understanding of these mechanisms has increased enormously in the past few years. Current research is focused on the contribution of animal models for understanding human spatial audition, the effects of behavioural demands on neural sound location encoding, the emergence of a cue-independent location representation in the auditory cortex, and the relationship between single-source and concurrent location encoding in complex auditory scenes. Furthermore, computational modelling seeks to unravel how neural representations of sound source locations are derived from the complex binaural waveforms of real-life sounds. In this article, we review and integrate the latest insights from neurophysiological, neuroimaging and computational modelling studies of mammalian spatial hearing. We propose that the cortical representation of sound location emerges from recurrent processing taking place in a dynamic, adaptive network of early (primary) and higher-order (posterior–dorsal and dorsolateral prefrontal) auditory regions. This cortical network accommodates changing behavioural requirements and is especially relevant for processing the location of real-life, complex sounds and complex auditory scenes.

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Fig. 1: Sound localization in humans.
Fig. 2: From binaural real-life sound to location perception: encoding and decoding.
Fig. 3: Cortical network of sound location processing.
Fig. 4: Sound localization in complex auditory scenes.

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Acknowledgements

The work of K.v.d.H. is partially supported by the Erasmus Mundus Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Network. The work of E.F. is partially supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (VICI grant number 453–12–002) and the Dutch Province of Limburg (Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology). The work of J.P.R. is partially supported by the US National Science Foundation (PIRE grant number OISE-0730255), the US National Institutes of Health (grant numbers R01EY018923 and R01DC014989) and the Technische Universität München Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (grant number 291763). The work of B.d.G. is partially supported by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (grant number 295673) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant number 645553).

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  1. Department of ENT/Audiology, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNS), Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands

    Kiki van der Heijden

  2. Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA

    Josef P. Rauschecker

  3. Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands

    Beatrice de Gelder & Elia Formisano

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K.v.d.H. researched data for the article, made substantial contributions to the discussion of content, wrote the article and reviewed or edited the manuscript before submission. J.P.R., B.d.G. and E.F. made substantial contributions to the discussion of content, and reviewed or edited the manuscript before submission.

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Glossary

Front–back ambiguities

Humans can have difficulty distinguishing whether a sound source is located behind or in front of them because the interaural time and level differences are identical for sound sources at the same angular position with respect to the interaural midline.

Coincidence detectors

Neurons whose firing rate is modulated by the time of arrival of input from two lower-level neurons, such that they respond maximally when the input arrives simultaneously.

Sparse coding

A neural coding strategy in which single neurons encode sensory stimuli efficiently by representing the maximal amount of information possible (thereby saving computational resources), and neuronal populations consist of neurons that encode unique information (that is, neural responses are independent).

Opponent coding

A neural representational mechanism in which sensory stimuli are represented by the integrated activity of two neuronal populations tuned to opposite values of the characteristic under consideration (for sound location: the integrated activity of a population tuned to the left hemifield and a population tuned to the right hemifield).

Relative sound location

In multi-source listening environments, the relative sound location refers to the location of the individual sound sources with respect to each other, that is, the spatial separation.

Spatial selective attention

The attentional focus of a listener on a particular location and the sounds presented at this location, while ignoring sounds at other locations.

Auditory stream segregation

The segregation and grouping of concurrent or interleaved sound streams in multi-source listening environments into their respective sound sources.

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van der Heijden, K., Rauschecker, J.P., de Gelder, B. et al. Cortical mechanisms of spatial hearing. Nat Rev Neurosci 20, 609–623 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-019-0206-5

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