Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33219122›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020

Distinct neural ensemble response statistics are associated with recognition and discrimination of natural sound textures.

Xiu Zhai, Fatemeh Khatami, Mina Sadeghi, Fengrong He, Heather L Read, Ian H Stevenson, Monty A Escabí

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
1.7field-weighted citation impact, top 16% of its field
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

13 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Interference of Mid-level Speech and Noise Statistics Underlies Human Speech Recognition Sensitivity in Natural Environmental Noise.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  5. Reduced Neural Responses to Natural Foreground versus Background Sounds in the Auditory Cortex.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  6. Dissociable Roles of the Auditory Midbrain and Cortex in Processing the Statistical Features of Natural Sound Textures.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
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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

7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Xiu ZhaiElectrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Fatemeh KhatamiBiomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Mina SadeghiElectrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Fengrong HeBiomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Heather L ReadBiomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Ian H StevensonBiomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.ORCID 0000-0002-1428-5946
Monty A EscabíElectrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; escabi@engr.uconn.edu.ORCID 0000-0001-7271-1061
University of Connecticut · USUniversity of the Pacific · US

Funding

CRCNS: The role of sound statistics for discrimination and coding of soundsR01DC015138 · NIDCD · UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS · PI ESCABI, MONTY A · 2015 to 2019
$1.4M
NIDCD NIH HHS R01 DC015138
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The perception of sound textures, a class of natural sounds defined by statistical sound structure such as fire, wind, and rain, has been proposed to arise through the integration of time-averaged summary statistics. Where and how the auditory system might encode these summary statistics to create internal representations of these stationary sounds, however, is unknown. Here, using natural textures and synthetic variants with reduced statistics, we show that summary statistics modulate the correlations between frequency organized neuron ensembles in the awake rabbit inferior colliculus (IC). These neural ensemble correlation statistics capture high-order sound structure and allow for accurate neural decoding in a single trial recognition task with evidence accumulation times approaching 1 s. In contrast, the average activity across the neural ensemble (neural spectrum) provides a fast (tens of milliseconds) and salient signal that contributes primarily to texture discrimination. Intriguingly, perceptual studies in human listeners reveal analogous trends: the sound spectrum is integrated quickly and serves as a salient discrimination cue while high-order sound statistics are integrated slowly and contribute substantially more toward recognition. The findings suggest statistical sound cues such as the sound spectrum and correlation structure are represented by distinct response statistics in auditory midbrain ensembles, and that these neural response statistics may have dissociable roles and time scales for the recognition and discrimination of natural sounds.

Indexed as

Discrimination, PsychologicalModels, StatisticalRecognition, PsychologySoundAdultAnimalsAuditory PerceptionFemaleHumansMaleMesencephalonNeuronsRabbitsTask Performance and AnalysisTime FactorsYoung Adultauditory texturesnatural soundsneural codingperceptionsound statistics

Identifiers

PMID33219122
PMCPMC7733800
OpenAlexW3104170714

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.