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Ears encode sound with precisely timed spikes, but the perceptual role of this temporal coding remains uncertain. Here, the authors report that high-fidelity temporal coding is necessary for neural network models to reproduce human-like auditory behavior.

Measuring rhythm priors in 39 participant groups from 15 countries, the authors find that properties of rhythm representations are common across cultures, while variation from place to place related to local musical traditions exists.

Francl and McDermott use deep neural networks to reveal the behavioural phenotype of systems optimized for tasks in simulated environments, showing that many characteristics of human sound localization are adapted to real-world environments.

Auditory textures are sounds defined by a particular statistical distribution, e.g. as is produced by rain, or a swarm of insects. Here, the authors describe a striking perceptual illusion in which sound textures are heard to continue, even though they have in fact been replaced by white noise.

In order to better distinguish the neural processing of speech versus language, this study measured brain responses to foreign speech that was temporally scrambled to varying extents. Using this manipulation to highlight sensitivity to speech independent of linguistic structure, the authors identify a bilateral locus of speech analysis in the superior temporal sulcus.

The neural and computational mechanisms underpinning pitch perception remain unclear. Here, the authors trained deep neural networks to estimate the fundamental frequency of sounds and found that human pitch perception depends on precise spike timing in the auditory nerve, but is also adapted to the statistical tendencies of natural sounds.

Cosmic rays flying through superconducting quantum devices create bursts of excitations that destroy qubit coherence. Rapid, spatially resolved measurements of qubit error rates make it possible to observe the evolution of the bursts across a chip.

A native Amazonian society rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant, whereas Bolivian city- and town-dwellers preferred consonance, indicating that preference for consonance over dissonance is not universal and probably develops from exposure to particular types of polyphonic music.

The authors test artificial neural networks with stimuli whose activations are matched to those of a natural stimulus. These ‘model metamers’ are often unrecognizable to humans, demonstrating a discrepancy between human and model sensory systems.

Music varies across cultures, but some features are widespread, consistent with biological constraints. Here, the authors report that both Western and native Amazonian listeners perceptually fuse concurrent notes related by simple-integer ratios, suggestive of one such biological constraint.

The authors show that areas of the auditory cortex differ in the extent to which their responses to sounds are altered by the presence of background noise. Cortical responses to sounds in primary areas are more affected by background noise than are those in non-primary areas.

Harmonicity is associated with a single sound source and may be a useful cue with which to segregate the speech of multiple talkers. Here the authors introduce a method for perturbing the constituent frequencies of speech and show that violating harmonicity degrades intelligibility of speech mixtures.

In a series of 11 experiments, the authors show that what has traditionally been considered 'pitch perception' is mediated by several different mechanisms.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues Network aims to create a reference catalogue of somatic mosaicism across different tissues and cells within individuals.

Sensory signals are transduced at high resolution, but their structure must be stored in a more compact format. Here the authors show that the auditory system summarizes the temporal details of sounds using time-averaged statistics. Such statistical representations produce good categorical discrimination, but limit the ability to discern temporal detail.

Norman-Haignere et al. report that humans but not macaque monkeys possess cortical regions with a strong preference for harmonic tones compared to noise. This species difference may be driven by the demands of speech and music perception in humans.

The Impact of Genomic Variation on Function Consortium is combining single-cell mapping, genomic perturbations and predictive modelling to investigate relationships between human genomic variation, genome function and phenotypes and will provide an open resource to the community.