Evidence for a sound movement area in the human cerebral cortex

Abstract

HUMAN listeners can localize sounds by the difference in both arrival time (phase) and loudness between the two ears¹. Movement of the sound source modulates these cues, and responses to moving sounds have been detected in animals in primary auditory cortex^2,3 and in humans in other cortical areas⁴. Here we show that detection of changes in the interaural phase or amplitude difference occurs through a mechanism distinct from that used to detect changes in one ear alone. Moreover, a patient with a right hemisphere stroke is unable to detect sound movement, regardless of whether it is defined by phase or by loudness cues. We propose that this deficit reflects damage to a distinct cortical area, outside the classical auditory areas, that is specialized for the detection of sound motion. The deficit is analagous to cerebral akinotopsia (motion blindness) in the visual system, and so the auditory system may, like the visual system⁵, show localization of specialized functions to different cortical regions.