Cited by 70Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, GeneticsNeuroscience and Music PerceptionNoise Effects and Management

Predictive coding and stochastic resonance as fundamental principles of auditory phantom perception.

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Schilling, Achim, Sedley, William, Gerum, Richard, Metzner, Claus, Tziridis, Konstantin, Maier, Andreas, Schulze, Holger, Zeng, Fan-Gang +2 more·2023·Brain

Abstract

Mechanistic insight is achieved only when experiments are employed to test formal or computational models. Furthermore, in analogy to lesion studies, phantom perception may serve as a vehicle to understand the fundamental processing principles underlying healthy auditory perception. With a special focus on tinnitus-as the prime example of auditory phantom perception-we review recent work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, psychology and neuroscience. In particular, we discuss why everyone with tinnitus suffers from (at least hidden) hearing loss, but not everyone with hearing loss suffers from tinnitus. We argue that intrinsic neural noise is generated and amplified along the auditory pathway as a compensatory mechanism to restore normal hearing based on adaptive stochastic resonance. The neural noise increase can then be misinterpreted as auditory input and perceived as tinnitus. This mechanism can be formalized in the Bayesian brain framework, where the percept (posterior) assimilates a prior prediction (brain's expectations) and likelihood (bottom-up neural signal). A higher mean and lower variance (i.e. enhanced precision) of the likelihood shifts the posterior, evincing a misinterpretation of sensory evidence, which may be further confounded by plastic changes in the brain that underwrite prior predictions. Hence, two fundamental processing principles provide the most explanatory power for the emergence of auditory phantom perceptions: predictive coding as a top-down and adaptive stochastic resonance as a complementary bottom-up mechanism. We conclude that both principles also play a crucial role in healthy auditory perception. Finally, in the context of neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence, both processing principles may serve to improve contemporary machine learning techniques.

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Authors
Schilling, A., Sedley, W., Gerum, R., Metzner, C., Tziridis, K., Maier, A., Schulze, H., Zeng, F.-G., Friston, K. J., & Krauss, P.
Affiliations
  • Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE)
  • Newcastle University (GB)
  • Universitätsklinikum Erlangen (DE)
  • University of California, Irvine (US)
  • Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
Corresponding author
Schilling, Achim
Venue
Brain
Published
2023-07-28
Volume
146
Issue
12
Pages
4809-4825
ISSN
  • 0006-8950 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-2156
OpenAlex
W4385331364
Cited by
70
References
189
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 3
FWCI
3.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Brain (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • ERC
  • DFG
  • Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging
  • Canada-UK Artificial Intelligence Initiative
  • Emerging Talents Initiative
  • University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Speech and Hearing › Noise Effects and Management
Keywords
tinnitus, predictive coding, stochastic resonance, neural noise, Bayesian brain, hidden hearing loss, auditory pathway, top-down and bottom-up processing, prior expectations, neuroplasticity
MeSH terms
Artificial Intelligence, Auditory Pathways, Auditory Perception, Bayes Theorem, Humans, Tinnitus, Hearing Loss

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