AL neurons carry sensory evidence for pitch decisions while ML do not

Evidence

The preliminary findings from our low-high pitch study suggest that AL neurons, but not ML neurons, might represent the sensory information (evidence) used to inform the monkeys’ perceptual decisions. Specifically, AL neurometric sensitivity appeared to be correlated with both psychometric sensitivity and the monkeys’ choices. Consistent with these findings, AL may play a causal role in these auditory judgments: microstimulation of an AL site tends to shift the monkeys’ reports toward the pitch associated with the site’s frequency tuning. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4885

Categorization

• XREF: Microstimulation causally shifting percepts echoes classic work on motion direction in area MT (Salzman & Newsome) — a strong cross-modal parallel worth following.