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The Journal of Neuroscience, August 15, 1998, 18(16):6388-6394

The Functional Anatomy of Sound Intensity Discrimination

Pascal Belin¹, Stephen McAdams^{2, 3}, Bennet Smith², Sophie Savel^{2, 3}, Lionel Thivard¹, Séverine Samson⁴, and Yves Samson^{1, 5}

¹ Groupe de Neurologie, Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot, DRM-CEA, F-91406 Orsay cedex, France, ² Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique, F-75004 Paris, France, ³ Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Université René Descartes, Équipe de Neuropsychologie et Langage, F-75006 Paris, France, ⁴ Université Charles de Gaulle Lille III, BP 149, F-59653 Villeneuve d'Asq cedex, France, and ⁵ Service des Urgences Cérébro-Vasculaires, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, F-75651 Paris cedex 13, France

The human neuroanatomical substrate of sound intensity discrimination was investigated by combining psychoacoustics and functional neuroimaging. Seven normal subjects were trained to detect deviant sounds presented with a slightly higher intensity than a standard harmonic sound, using a Go/No Go paradigm. Individual psychometric curves were carefully assessed using a three-step psychoacoustic procedure. Subjects were scanned while passively listening to the standard sound and while discriminating changes in sound intensity at four different performance levels (d' = 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5). Analysis of regional cerebral blood flow data outlined activation, during the discrimination conditions, of a right hemispheric frontoparietal network already reported in other studies of selective or sustained attention to sensory input, and in which activity appeared inversely proportional to intensity discriminability. Conversely, a right posterior temporal region included in secondary auditory cortex was activated during discrimination of sound intensity independently of performance level. These findings suggest that discrimination of sound intensity involves two different cortical networks: a supramodal right frontoparietal network responsible for allocation of sensory attentional resources, and a region of secondary auditory cortex specifically involved in sensory computation of sound intensity differences.

Key words: audition; attention; intensity discrimination; functional neuroimaging; psychoacoustics; human; performance level

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Copyright © 1998 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/98/18166388-07$05.00/0

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