Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

An ear for statistics

Nature Neuroscience volume 16, pages 381–382 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

A study finds that sound textures are stored in auditory memory as summary statistics representing the sound over long time scales; specific events are superimposed, forming a 'skeleton of events on a bed of texture'.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Auditory spectrograms of different textures.

References

  1. Grill, B. & Quackenbush, S. MPEG-1 audio. <http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-1/audio> (2005; accessed 5 February 2013).

  2. McDermott, J.H., Schemitsch, M. & Simoncelli, E.P. Nat. Neurosci. 16, 493–498 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Moore, B.C.J. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 54, 610–619 (1973).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. McDermott, J.H. & Simoncelli, E.P. Neuron 71, 926–940 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Green, D.M. in Human Psychophysics (eds. Yost, W.A., Popper, A.N. & Fay, R.R.) 13–55 (Springer, New York, 1993).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  6. Tishby, N. & Polani, D. in Perception-Reason-Action Cycle: Models, Algorithms and Systems (eds. Vassilis, C., Hussain, A. & Taylor, J.G.) 601–636 (Springer, New York, 2011).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  7. Nahum, M., Nelken, I. & Ahissar, M. PLoS Biol. 6, e126 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Agus, T.R., Thorpe, S.J. & Pressnitzer, D. Neuron 66, 610–618 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Israel Nelken is in the Department of Neuroscience, the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, and the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel,

    Israel Nelken

  2. Alain de Cheveigné is at the CNRS, the Université Paris Descartes and the Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, France, and University College London, London, UK.,

    Alain de Cheveigné

Authors
  1. Israel Nelken
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alain de Cheveigné
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Israel Nelken.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Nelken, I., de Cheveigné, A. An ear for statistics. Nat Neurosci 16, 381–382 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3360

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3360

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing AI and Robotics

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics newsletter — what matters in AI and robotics research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics