Adapting to altered auditory cues: Generalization from manual reaching to head pointing

PLoS One. 2022 Apr 14;17(4):e0263509. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263509. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Localising sounds means having the ability to process auditory cues deriving from the interplay among sound waves, the head and the ears. When auditory cues change because of temporary or permanent hearing loss, sound localization becomes difficult and uncertain. The brain can adapt to altered auditory cues throughout life and multisensory training can promote the relearning of spatial hearing skills. Here, we study the training potentials of sound-oriented motor behaviour to test if a training based on manual actions toward sounds can learning effects that generalize to different auditory spatial tasks. We assessed spatial hearing relearning in normal hearing adults with a plugged ear by using visual virtual reality and body motion tracking. Participants performed two auditory tasks that entail explicit and implicit processing of sound position (head-pointing sound localization and audio-visual attention cueing, respectively), before and after having received a spatial training session in which they identified sound position by reaching to auditory sources nearby. Using a crossover design, the effects of the above-mentioned spatial training were compared to a control condition involving the same physical stimuli, but different task demands (i.e., a non-spatial discrimination of amplitude modulations in the sound). According to our findings, spatial hearing in one-ear plugged participants improved more after reaching to sound trainings rather than in the control condition. Training by reaching also modified head-movement behaviour during listening. Crucially, the improvements observed during training generalize also to a different sound localization task, possibly as a consequence of acquired and novel head-movement strategies.

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation
  • Adaptation, Physiological
  • Adult
  • Auditory Perception
  • Cross-Over Studies
  • Cues*
  • Hearing
  • Humans
  • Sound Localization*

Grants and funding

The study was supported by a grant of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-16-CE17-0016, VIRTUALHEARING3D, France, https://anr.fr/) to F.P. and A.F. In addition, C.V. was supported by a grant of the Università Italo-Francese/Université Franco-Italienne (https://www.universite-franco-italienne.org/), the Zegna Founder's Scholarship (https://www.zegnagroup.com/it/csr/founder-scholarship/) and Associazione Amici di Claudio Demattè (http://www.amicidematte.org/). F.P. and A.F. were also supported by a prize of the Foundation Medisite (France), by the Neurodis Foundation (France) and by a grant from the Italian Ministry for Research and University (MUR, PRIN 20177894ZH) (https://www.miur.gov.it/). Finally, A.F. was supported by the IHU CaSaMe ANR-10-UBHU-0003 and ANR 2019CE37 Blind Touch (ANR: https://anr.fr/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.