Neural mechanisms for selectively tuning in to the target speaker in a naturalistic noisy situation

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04819-z
• Publication Date: 2018-06-13T15:21:26Z
• Authors: Bohan Dai; Chuansheng Chen; Yuhang Long; Lifen Zheng; Hui Zhao; Xialu Bai; Wenda Liu; Yuxuan Zhang; Li Liu; Taomei Guo; Guosheng Ding; Chunming Lu
• Keywords: Naturalism

The neural mechanism for selectively tuning in to a target speaker while out the others multi-speaker situation (i.e., cocktail-party effect) remains elusive. Here we addressed this issue by measuring brain activity simultaneously from listener and multiple speakers they were involved naturalistic conversations. Results consistently show enhanced interpersonal synchronization (INS) between attended at left temporal-parietal junction, compared with that unattended across different situations. Moreover, INS increases significantly prior occurrence of verbal responses, even when listener's precedes speaker. increase is independent brain-to-speech both anatomical location frequency range. These findings suggest underlies selective process through predictions content level but not sensory speech.