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Event-related potentials to single-cycle binaural beats of a pure tone, a click train, and a noise

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Abstract

There are only few electrophysiological studies on a phenomenon called “binaural beats” (BBs), which is experienced when two tones with frequencies close to each other are dichotically presented to the ears. And, there is no study in which the electrical responses of the brain to BBs of complex sounds are recorded and analyzed. Owing to a recent method based on single-cycle BB stimulation with sub-threshold temporary monaural frequency shifts, we could record the event-related potentials (ERPs) to BBs of a 250-Hz tone as well as those to the BBs of a 250/s click train and to the BBs of a recurrent 4-ms Gaussian noise. Although fundamental components of the click train and noise stimuli were lower in intensity than the tonal stimuli in our experiments, the N1 responses to the BBs of the former two wide-spectrum sounds were recorded with significantly larger amplitudes and shorter latencies than those to the BBs of a tone, suggesting an across-frequency integration of directional information. During a BB cycle of a complex sound, the interaural time differences (ITDs) of the spectral components are all equal to each other at any time; whereas their interaural phase differences (IPDs) are all different. The ITD rather than the IPD should, therefore, be the cue that is relied upon by the binaural mechanism coding the perceived lateral shifts of the sound caused by BBs. This is in line with across-frequency models of human auditory lateralization based on a common ITD, fulfilling a straightness criterion.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council, Ankara (Project: 114S492) and supported by Koc University, School of Medicine, Istanbul; and also by Science Academy, Istanbul, Turkey. Suha Yagcioglu, one of the co-authors of this study, passed away before submission of the manuscript. In recognition of his immense contribution to the study, we keep his name in the author list.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Pekcan Ungan

  2. Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

    Suha Yagcioglu

  3. Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ece Ayik

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  1. Pekcan Ungan
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  2. Suha Yagcioglu
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Correspondence to Pekcan Ungan.

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Ungan, P., Yagcioglu, S. & Ayik, E. Event-related potentials to single-cycle binaural beats of a pure tone, a click train, and a noise. Exp Brain Res 237, 2811–2828 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05638-4

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