Representations of auditory time: pre-attentive and attentive processing of temporal sound features

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The auditory system relies on processing time-sensitive information to create meaningful auditory representations, particularly in the context of speech and music. This dissertation explores both pre-attentive and attentive processing of temporal properties in the auditory domain, focusing on sound duration and dynamic spectral changes through four experiments utilizing event-related potentials. The findings provide electrophysiological evidence for distinct, time-range specific mechanisms in auditory processing. One identified mechanism operates automatically within a time frame of up to 300 ms, linked to auditory sensory memory, and is crucial for automatic auditory segmentation. Additionally, during attentive processing, there is a general enhancement of duration and temporal structure representations. A second mechanism is activated when attention is directed towards the time domain, particularly for durations exceeding 300 ms. This cognitively controlled mechanism is believed to engage higher-order cognitive processes that may be shared across different sensory modalities. Overall, the research highlights the complexity of temporal processing in the auditory system and its implications for understanding auditory perception.