Auditory Cognition: The Integration of Psychophysics with Neurophysiology

Abstract

Hearing and communication present a variety of challenges to the nervous system. To be heard and to be understood, an auditory signal must be transformed from a time-varying acoustic waveform to a perceptual representation and then to an abstract representation that combines this perceptual representation with memory stores and semantic/referential information (Griffiths & Warren, 2004). Finally, this abstract representation must be interpreted to form a categorical decision that guides behavior. Did I hear the stimulus? From where and whom did it come? What does it tell me? How can I use this information to plan an action? All of these issues and questions underlie auditory cognition.