Holding stimuli constant while varying perceptual reports can dissociate sensory from perceptual neural activity

Evidence

We will take the position that auditory objects are analogous to perceptual representations (i.e., sounds) (Bizley and Cohen 2013 ). As a consequence of this definition, if a neuron encodes an auditory object, it should be modulated by a listener’s perceptual reports. That is, by holding a stimulus constant and testing whether neural activity is modulated by a listener’s reports, neural activity that is associated with the acoustic features of the stimulus can be dissociated from neural activity associated with the perceptual report. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4886

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines auditory objects as perceptual representations and derives the operational test for whether a neuron encodes them.
• XREF: Relates to the reader’s interest in how cognition links to physiology — the neural dissociation technique threads across the physiology-psychoacoustics-cognition triangle.