Hemodynamic Responses Link Individual Differences in Informational Masking to the Vicinity of Superior Temporal Gyrus.

ABSTRACT: Suppressing unwanted background sound is crucial for aural communication. A particularly disruptive type of background sound, informational masking (IM), often interferes in social settings. However, IM mechanisms are incompletely understood. At present, IM is identified operationally: when a target should be audible, based on suprathreshold target/masker energy ratios, yet cannot be heard because target-like background sound interferes. We here confirm that speech identification thresholds differ dramatically between low- vs. high-IM background sound. However, speech detection thresholds are comparable across the two conditions. Moreover, functional near infrared spectroscopy recordings show that task-evoked blood oxygenation changes near the superior temporal gyrus (STG) covary with beha

SUBMITTER: Zhang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8339305 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature