I suppose "more direct" can be interpreted differently, but to the best of my knowledge the signal from your cochlea takes more axonal jumps[0] than e.g. visual

I suppose "more direct" can be interpreted differently, but to the best of my knowledge the signal from your cochlea takes more axonal jumps[0] than e.g. visual, which jumps "only" through LGM[1]. Even more direct is the olfactory pathway which skips the thalamus altogether[2]. However, in the context of the article you might be referring only to intertelencephalic processing, in which case I'd love to read a paper which compares the directness of hearing vs other modalities. [0]: https://teachmeanatomy.info/neuroanatomy/pathways/auditory-pathway https://teachmeanatomy.info/neuroanatomy/pathways/auditory-p... [1]: https://www.ophthalmologyreview.org/articles/the-afferent-visual-pathway https://www.ophthalmologyreview.org/articles/the-afferent-vi... [2]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncir.2015.00049/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncir.2015.0004...