Schedule of Events | Symposia

The missing pulse revisited: Comparing dynamic models with expert listeners

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Edward Large¹ (edward.large@uconn.edu), Tylor Harlow¹, Mina Golmohammadi¹, Charles Wasserman¹, Heather Read¹; ¹University of Connecticut

Pulse is the perceptual phenomenon in which an individual perceives a steady beat underlying a complex auditory rhythm, as in music. A number of studies support the hypothesis that synchronization of neural oscillations is the mechanism of pulse perception, however this remains a topic of current debate. This study examines stimulus rhythms that have no spectral energy at the intended pulse frequency, called missing pulse rhythms. Behavioral studies with missing pulse rhythms show that people do perceive the pulse at frequencies predicted by neural synchronization. Further, EEG and MEG steady-state evoked response potentials (SS-ERPs) reveal the predicted frequencies, and have shown that their amplitudes correlate with perception. In this study, w e first trained a neural model consisting of oscillatory auditory and motor networks with complex rhythms, and showed that pulse frequency oscillations arise in the motor planning network. Next we recorded EEG in expert listeners and analyzed only those trials for which perception of the missing pulse frequency was verified. We observed 1) strong pulse-frequency SS-ERPs to missing pulse rhythms, but not to a random control; 2) strong coherence between model-predicted SS-ERPs and brain responses; and 3) differing pulse-frequency localization for missing pulse rhythms versus isochronous controls. Comparison of these results with model predictions support the theory that pulse perception occurs as the result of an emergent population oscillation in motor planning networks that entrains at the pulse frequency.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Audition