The biological basis of audition

Audition is one of the fundamental extrasensory percepts in mammals. Two of the primary objectives of audition are to determine where sounds originate from in space and what those sounds are. Neural processing of acoustic signals, which are commonly quite complex under natural conditions, is extensive in the brainstem, midbrain, and thalamus. This processing extracts multiple salient features that are then transmitted to the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is a necessary neural structure for audition, or the perception of acoustic auditory objects and/or events. This entry will review the early processing along the ascending auditory central nervous system from the cochlea to the cerebral cortex. The neural mechanisms of audition will then be explored for spatial and non‐spatial perception, drawing largely on examples from non‐human primates, but insights gained from other mammalian species will also be covered. How these models relate to current studies in human subjects, using both functional imaging and invasive techniques, will also be explored as well as the types of future studies that will enable us to better understand the neural mechanisms of audition. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 408–418 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.118 This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Physiology