Attention modulates auditory representations at different levels of abstraction depending on scene structure

The human auditory system represents sounds at multiple levels, from low-level acoustic features to abstract category- and object-level information. Although selective attention enables listening in complex natural soundscapes, it remains unclear which representational levels are modulated by attention and how this depends on scene structure. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, representational similarity analysis, and cross-experiment decoding, we examined attentional modulation of auditory representations under three conditions: 1) listening to isolated sounds, 2) attending to one of three overlapping sounds from different categories, or 3) one of three overlapping sounds from the same category.

We show that attentional modulation is task-dependent: when competing sounds could not be distinguished by category, attention enhanced low-level acoustic feature processing, whereas in cross-category scenes it targeted abstract category-level representations. Object-identity representations were modulated by attention across both scene types, with category-specific differences, demonstrating flexible, task-dependent targeting of auditory features. Lehtimäki for assistance with data acquisition; V.

Kauramäki for input on study design; and C. Pedersini for comments on the manuscript. P.W. discloses support for the research of this work from the Research Council of Finland (grant numbers 1348353 and 368974).

The funders had no role in the study design; data collection, analysis, or interpretation; the decision to publish; or the preparation of the manuscript. Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Onnipekka V. Wikman Neuroscience Center, HiLife, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Department of Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland Helsinki Collegium For Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland The authors declare no competing interests.

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If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Varis, O.V., Muukkonen, I.A. & Wikman, P.A.