Natural sounds convey perceptually relevant information over multiple timescales, and the necessary extraction of multi-timescale information requires the auditory system to work over distinct ranges. The simplest hypothesis suggests that temporal modulations are encoded in an equivalent manner within a reasonable intermediate range. We show that the human auditory system selectively and preferentially tracks acoustic dynamics concurrently at 2 timescales corresponding to the neurophysiological theta band (4-7 Hz) and gamma band ranges (31-45 Hz) but, contrary to expectation, not at the timescale corresponding to alpha (8-12 Hz), which has also been found to be related to auditory perception. Listeners heard synthetic acoustic stimuli with temporally modulated structures at 3 timescales (approximately 190-, approximately 100-, and approximately 30-ms modulation periods) and identified the stimuli while undergoing magnetoencephalography recording. There was strong intertrial phase coherence in the theta band for stimuli of all modulation rates and in the gamma band for stimuli with corresponding modulation rates. The alpha band did not respond in a similar manner. Classification analyses also revealed that oscillatory phase reliably tracked temporal dynamics but not equivalently across rates. Finally, mutual information analyses quantifying the relation between phase and cochlear-scaled correlations also showed preferential processing in 2 distinct regimes, with the alpha range again yielding different patterns. The results support the hypothesis that the human auditory system employs (at least) a 2-timescale processing mode, in which lower and higher perceptual sampling scales are segregated by an intermediate temporal regime in the alpha band that likely reflects different underlying computations.

中文翻译：

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并发的听觉处理的时间通道：振荡性神经夹带揭示了不同尺度下的功能分离。

自然声音会在多个时标上传达与感知相关的信息，而对多时标信息的必要提取要求听觉系统在不同的范围内工作。最简单的假设表明，在合理的中间范围内以等效方式对时间调制进行编码。我们表明，人类听觉系统在与神经生理学θ带（4-7 Hz）和伽玛带范围（31-45 Hz）相对应的2个时标上有选择地并优先同时跟踪声学动力学，但与预期相反，不在相应的时标上到α（8-12 Hz），也被发现与听觉有关。聆听者在3个时标（大约190，大约100，大约30毫秒的调制周期），并在进行脑磁图记录时识别出刺激。在θ带中，所有调制率的刺激都具有很强的三相间相干性；在γ带中，具有相应调制率的刺激具有很强的三相间相干性。阿尔法乐队没有以类似的方式作出反应。分类分析还显示，振荡相位可以可靠地跟踪时间动态，但不能等效地跟踪速率。最后，量化相位和耳蜗比例相关性之间关系的互信息分析还显示，在2种不同的情况下优先处理，其中α范围再次产生不同的模式。结果支持以下假设：人类听觉系统采用（至少）2时标处理模式，