Spatial Location Encoding of Auditory Sources in the Human Brain:

An EEG Study
Atri Ghosh, Aditi Jha, Krishna P. Miyapuram* <[email protected]>
Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

Introduction Results
Objective: To understand the neural mechanisms underlying ERP and ERSP Analysis:
sound localization and investigate whether the location of an
auditory source is embedded in neural activity. o Focused on left-parietal (E-L), right-parietal (E-R), and central (E-C)
brain regions.
Background:
o ERSP signals in the alpha frequency range were significantly higher
o Sound localization is crucial for navigation and in ipsilateral parietal areas than in central regions.
survival.
o Ipsilateral parietal regions showed higher ERSP amplitude in the
o Previous studies focus on Interaural Intensity alpha band than contralateral regions, though differences were not
Difference (IID) and Interaural Time Difference (ITD) statistically significant.
(Middlebrooks et al., 1991).
o Behavioral data indicated accurate localization of auditory stimuli,
o Other factors like the structure of the pinna and with better performance for localized tones.
spectral content of the cue also contribute to
localization ability.
o Evidence exists for monaural sound localization,
which cannot be explained by IID and ITD alone.

Fig 1: Power spectral density grand average ERSP graph across 6 different
stimulus locations for E-L, E-C, and E-R (for tone 46).

Methods
Participants: 29 students from IIT Gandhinagar with no
reported hearing or mental conditions and no musical
training.
Stimuli:
o 12 mathematically generated tones simulating
naturalistic piano tones.
o Tones were distinguishable and within the frequency
range below 500 Hz. Fig 2: Power spectral density grand average ERSP for E-L, E-C, and E-R
o Presented through six equidistant speakers arranged for stimulus in left versus right condition.
around the participant.
Procedure:
o Three phases: pre-training behavioral, training (free- Discussion
listening), and post-training behavioral. Key Insights:
o Participants localized sound sources on a o Differences in encoding spatial information of auditory stimuli
touchscreen monitor during behavioral phases. between ipsilateral and contralateral parietal regions in the alpha
o In the training phase, participants passively listened frequency band.
to tones. o Higher preferential encoding in the ipsilateral parietal region
o Tones were divided into localized and non-localized than in the central region.
sets. o Supports findings of Deng et al. (2020) on topographic specificity
EEG Recording: of alpha power during auditory spatial attention.
o Extensive pre-processing including re-referencing, Implications:
band-pass filtering, Independent Component o Provides evidence for asymmetrical representation in parietal
Analysis (ICA), and ICLabel classification to remove hemispheres.
artifacts. o Adds to the understanding of supramodal representation in
o Data was epoched from -200 ms to 800 ms post- parietal cortices.
stimulus onset with a baseline from -200 ms to 0 ms. o Experimental design allows for further questions on how
o EEG data analysis was performed for 12 participants. localization changes neural signature properties of stimuli.
o Behavioral data indicating perceived location of
auditory sources was recorded and analyzed.

References
Banerjee, S., Snyder, A. C., Molholm, S., & Foxe, J. J. (2011). Oscillatory alpha-band mechanisms and the deployment of spatial attention to anticipated auditory and visual target locations: supramodal or sensory-specific control mechanisms?. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(27), 9923-9932.
Deng, Y., Choi, I., & Shinn-Cunningham, B. (2020). Topographic specificity of alpha power during auditory spatial attention. Neuroimage, 207, 116360.
Dong, Y., Raif, K. E., Determan, S. C., & Gai, Y. (2017). Decoding spatial attention with EEG and virtual acoustic space. Physiological reports, 5(22), e13512.
Ebisawa, M., Kogure, M., Yano, S. H., Matsuzaki, S. I., & Wada, Y. (2011, August). Estimation of direction of attention using EEG and out-of-head sound localization. In 2011 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (pp. 7417-7420). IEEE.
Ghosh, A. (2023). Spatial Location Encoding of Auditory Sources in the Human Brain [Master’s dissertation, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar]
Gutschalk, A., Micheyl, C., & Oxenham, A. J. (2008). Neural correlates of auditory perceptual awareness under informational masking. PLoS biology, 6(6), e138.
Luck, S. J. (2014). An introduction to the event-related potential technique. MIT press.
Middlebrooks, J. C., & Green, D. M. (1991). Sound localization by human listeners. Annual Review of Psychology, 42(1), 135-159.
Münte, T. F., Kohlmetz, C., Nager, W., & Altenmüller, E. (2001). Superior auditory spatial tuning in conductors. Nature, 409(6820), 580-580.
Nambu, I., Ebisawa, M., Kogure, M., Yano, S., Hokari, H., & Wada, Y. (2013). Estimating the intended sound direction of the user: toward an auditory brain-computer interface using out-of-head sound localization. PloS one, 8(2), e57174.
Röder, B., Teder-Sälejärvi, W., Sterr, A., Rösler, F., Hillyard, S. A., & Neville, H. J. (1999). Improved auditory spatial tuning in blind humans. Nature, 400(6740), 162-166.