Dimension-Selective Attention and Dimensional Salience Modulate Cortical Tracking of Acoustic Dimensions

Some theories of auditory categorization suggest that auditory dimensions that are strongly diagnostic for particular categories - for instance voice onset time or fundamental frequency in the case of some spoken consonants - attract attention. However, prior cognitive neuroscience research on auditory selective attention has largely focused on attention to simple auditory objects or streams, and so little is known about the neural mechanisms that underpin dimension-selective attention, or how the relative salience of variations along these dimensions might modulate neural signatures of attention. Here we investigate whether dimensional salience and dimension-selective attention modulate cortical tracking of acoustic dimensions. In two experiments, participants listened to tone sequences varying in pitch and spectral peak frequency; these two dimensions changed at systematically different rates. Inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) and EEG signal amplitude at the rates of pitch and spectral change allowed us to measure cortical tracking of these dimensions. In Experiment 1, tone sequences varied in the size of the pitch intervals, while the size of spectral peak intervals remained constant. Neural entrainment to pitch changes was greater for sequences with larger compared to smaller pitch intervals, with no difference in entrainment to the spectral dimension. In Experiment 2, participants selectively attended to either the pitch or spectral dimension. Neural entrainment was stronger in response to the attended compared to unattended dimension for both pitch and spectral dimensions. These findings demonstrate that bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms enhance the cortical tracking of different acoustic dimensions within a single sound stream.