From: MARK TRAMO
To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: Detection vs. Discrimination vs. Recognition
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 01:17:45 +0000
JE - FYI - Thought you might enjoy this - especially if within earshot of an accordion player. Where does one
draw the lines between these reductionist classifications of tonal information processing - detection v
discrimination v recognition?
Effects of stimulus spectrum and bilateral auditory cortex lesions on pitch
direction discrimination for pure-tones and complex-tones with and
without energy at FO
Mark Jude Tramoa
Departments ofIntegrative Biology & Physiology, Musicology, and Neurology, UCLA School ofLetters & Science, Herb Alpert School
ofMusic, and David Geffen School ofMedicine, 445 Charles E Young Drive East, Schoenberg 2539 G, Los Angeles, California, 90095-
1616
Cory D. Bonn
Department ofPsychology, University ofBritish Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Peter A. Cariani
Hearing Research Center, Boston University, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Louis D. Braida
Research Laboratory ofElectronics, M.I.T. Department ofElectricalEngineering & Computer Science, Room 36-791, 77
Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Abstract
We carried out a series of experiments to test the following hypotheses: 1) fundamental-frequency difference (APO) thresholds for
harmonic-tone pitch direction discrimination with and without energy at FO are greater than and proportionate to pure-
tone frequency difference thresholds in normal adult listeners; 2) auditory cortex is necessary for high-acuity pitch direction
discrimination in humans; 3) auditory cortex is not necessary for low-acuity pitch perception; and 4) elevations in APO thresholds for
harmonic-tone pitch perception following bilateral auditory cortex lesions are proportionate to elevations in pure-tone frequency
difference thresholds. The first hypothesis was supported by experiments with nine, middle-age, non-musicians and five types of tone
stimuli: 1) pure-tones; 2) harmonic-tones with energy at low harmonics, including FO; 3) low-frequency harmonic-tones without
energy at FO; 4) harmonic-tones with energy at high harmonics and FO; and S) high-frequency harmonic-tones without energy at FO.
The last three hypotheses were supported by an existence proof provided by experiments with a middle-age man (Case Al+) who lost
all of primary auditory cortex and much of auditory association cortex due to bilateral middle cerebral artery strokes. There was no
evidence of a functional dissociation that would suggest selective loss of putative temporal or place-rate coding mechanisms following
bilateral auditory cortex lesions. A functional dissociation was found between impaired tone discrimination and spared tone detection,
consistent with the results of numerous lesion-effect experiments with humans, non-human primates, and other mammals. The
present and previous findings suggest there is no unitary "pitch center" residing in human auditory cortex that is necessary for pitch
perception per se, even for perception of the "missing fundamental." Rather, regions of superior temporal cortex that show evidence of
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physiological activation in normal listeners during pitch and loudness perception may constitute an "auditory acuity center" for high-
resolution processing of tone frequency and intensity, akin to the role played by somatosensory cortex in two-point tactile
discrimination and visual cortex in two-line orientation discrimination. The distinction between low-level" and "high-level" auditory
functions with reference to the anatomical level of underlying neural substrates in the central auditory pathway, epitomized by
Campbell's influential dichotomization of auditory cortex subregions as "sensory" or "psychic" on anatomical grounds, may be illusory,
unless the line is drawn between stimulus detection and, broadly, stimulus perception, including discriminative processing of simple
stimuli.
Forwarded messa e
From: MARK TRAMO
Date: Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 6:07 PM
Subject: Detection vs. Discrimination vs. Recognition
To: Peter Cariani
Hi Peter -what do you think of the following expanded Abstract? Auditory psychologists like Peretz and Zatorre
like to categorize percepts like roughness and pure-tone pitch as "low-level" and "virtual pitch" perception as
"high-level." Well where does one draw the line? The thinking is "brainstem" vs. "cortex." or primary vs
association cortex. This case has always been interesting in that way - Andy Dykstra and I addressed this in the
pure-tone intensity paper with Case A1+ published in PLoSOne. The implications go beyond the auditory system
- basic sensory processing. Maybe its how fine-grained the acoustic information processing is that distinguishes
the contributions of different levels within the system?
Mark Jude Tramo, MD PhD
Dept of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dept of Musicology, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Director, The Institute for Music & Brain Science
Co-Director, University of California Multi-Campus Music Research Initiative (UC MERCI)
http://www.BrainMusic.org
http://merci.ucsd.edu
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