Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26787854›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016

Brain responses in humans reveal ideal observer-like sensitivity to complex acoustic patterns.

Nicolas Barascud, Marcus T Pearce, Timothy D Griffiths, Karl J Friston, Maria Chait

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 124 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
124citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

124 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
  3. Neural and autonomic predictors of future listening errors.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Modality-general sensitivity of pupil responses to regularity violations.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Non-verbal dichotic listening: A new cognitive hearing test for dementia.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026
    Article
  9. Article
  10. The Interplay of Bottom-Up Arousal and Attentional Capture during Auditory Scene Analysis: Evidence from Ocular Dynamics.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  11. Discovery, Interruption, and Updating of Auditory Regularities in Memory: Evidence from Low-Frequency Brain Dynamics in Human MEG.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  12. Temporal codes and recurrent timing nets for rhythmic expectancy.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026
    Article
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64 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Nicolas BarascudEar Institute, University College London, London WC1X 8EE, United Kingdom; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom; n.barascud@ucl.ac.uk m.chait@ucl.ac.uk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1495-561X
Marcus T PearceSchool of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom;
Timothy D GriffithsWellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom; Medical School, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
Karl J FristonWellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom;ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7984-8909
Maria ChaitEar Institute, University College London, London WC1X 8EE, United Kingdom; n.barascud@ucl.ac.uk m.chait@ucl.ac.uk.

Funding

Wellcome Trust 091593Wellcome Trust 093292/Z/10/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

We use behavioral methods, magnetoencephalography, and functional MRI to investigate how human listeners discover temporal patterns and statistical regularities in complex sound sequences. Sensitivity to patterns is fundamental to sensory processing, in particular in the auditory system, because most auditory signals only have meaning as successions over time. Previous evidence suggests that the brain is tuned to the statistics of sensory stimulation. However, the process through which this arises has been elusive. We demonstrate that listeners are remarkably sensitive to the emergence of complex patterns within rapidly evolving sound sequences, performing on par with an ideal observer model. Brain responses reveal online processes of evidence accumulation--dynamic changes in tonic activity precisely correlate with the expected precision or predictability of ongoing auditory input--both in terms of deterministic (first-order) structure and the entropy of random sequences. Source analysis demonstrates an interaction between primary auditory cortex, hippocampus, and inferior frontal gyrus in the process of discovering the regularity within the ongoing sound sequence. The results are consistent with precision based predictive coding accounts of perceptual inference and provide compelling neurophysiological evidence of the brain's capacity to encode high-order temporal structure in sensory signals.

Indexed as

AcousticsBrainHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingMagnetoencephalographyPsychophysicsfMRIMEGMMNpattern detectionstatistical learning

Identifiers

PMID26787854
PMCPMC4747708

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.