Divergence in the functional organization of human and macaque auditory cortex revealed by fMRI responses to harmonic tones

Samuel Norman-Haignere, Nancy Kanwisher, Josh McDermott, Bevil Conway

Abstract: We report a difference between humans and macaque monkeys in the functional organization of cortical regions implicated in pitch perception: humans but not macaques showed regions with a strong preference for harmonic sounds compared to noise, measured with both synthetic tones and macaque vocalizations. In contrast, frequency-selective tonotopic maps were similar between the two species. This species difference may be driven by the unique demands of speech and music perception in humans.