ArticlePLoS biology2025
The auditory brainstem response to natural speech is not affected by selective attention.
Article in PLoS biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- A DEEP NEURAL NETWORK FOR PREDICTING CONTINUOUS HUMAN EEG ACROSS THE AUDITORY PATHWAY IN RESPONSE TO SOUND.ArXiv · 2026Article
- The Cortical Contribution to the Speech-Frequency-Following Response Is Not Modulated by Visual Information.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Motor signals modulate cortical but not subcortical processing of self-initiated sounds.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Rethinking hierarchy: the auditory system as an integrated cortical-subcortical network.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Attention to speech modulates distortion product otoacoustic emissions evoked by speech-derived stimuli in humans.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Attention to Psuedo-Tone Melodies Enhances Cortical but Not Brainstem Responses in Humans.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The ability to pick out and attend to one sound in a noisy mixture underpins successful communication in many natural scenarios. Selective attention has been shown to drastically alter sound encoding in the cortex and has been hypothesized to modulate subcortical processing via an extensive efferent network. The body of work investigating this possibility in humans has not resulted in a clear consensus, possibly owing to limitations in the available methodologies. Here, we used new experimental tools that allowed distinct neural responses from across the auditory pathway to be simultaneously acquired from human listeners attending to the sound of one person talking while ignoring a second. Our series of experiments provide convergent evidence that selective attention does not influence sound encoding in the auditory periphery or brainstem, with an effect first appearing in the cortex. Humans' ability to focus their attention on a single sound even in the presence of many others is as remarkable as it is essential. These findings add needed clarity regarding the mechanisms that make this feat possible.
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Registered trials
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.