The interplay of uncertainty, relevance and learning influences auditory categorization.

ABSTRACT: Auditory perception requires categorizing sound sequences, such as speech or music, into classes, such as syllables or notes. Auditory categorization depends not only on the acoustic waveform, but also on variability and uncertainty in how the listener perceives the sound - including sensory and stimulus uncertainty, the listener's estimated relevance of the particular sound to the task, and their ability to learn the past statistics of the acoustic environment. Whereas these factors have been studied in isolation, whether and how these factors interact to shape categorization remains unknown. Here, we measured human participants' performance on a multi-tone categorization task and modeled each participant's behavior using a Bayesian framework. Task-relevant tones contributed more to categ

SUBMITTER: Sheth J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11772889 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature