Familiarity Affects the Processing of Task-irrelevant Auditory Deviance

The effects of familiarity on auditory change detection on the basis of auditory sensory memory representations were investigated by presenting oddball sequences of sounds while participants ignored the auditory stimuli. Stimulus sequences were composed of sounds that were familiar and sounds that were made unfamiliar by playing the same sounds backward. The roles of frequently presented stimuli (standards) and infrequently presented ones (deviants) were fully crossed. Deviants elicited the mismatch negativity component of the event-related brain potential. We found an enhancement in detecting changes when deviant sounds appeared among familiar standard sounds compared when they were delivered among unfamiliar standards. Familiarity with the deviant sounds also enhanced the change-detection process. We suggest that tuning to familiar items sets up preparatory processes that affect change detection in familiar sound sequences.

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Preattentive auditory change detection relies on unitary sensory memory representations

Neuroreport ◽

10.1097/00001756-199611040-00002 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 7 (15) ◽

pp. 2413-2418 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

István Czigler ◽

István Winkler

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Sensory Memory ◽

Memory Representations ◽

Auditory Change Detection

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Interactions between Transient and Long-Term Auditory Memory as Reflected by the Mismatch Negativity

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.1996.8.5.403 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 403-415 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

István Winkler ◽

Nelson Cowan ◽

Valéria Csépe ◽

István Czigler ◽

Risto Näätänen

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Standard Stimulus ◽

Standard Condition ◽

Sensory Memory ◽

Auditory Stimuli ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Memory Representation ◽

Term Memory ◽

Auditory Sensory Memory

The mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP) component is elicited by any discriminable change in series of repetitive auditory stimuli. MMN is generated by a process registering the deviation of the incoming stimulus from the trace of the previous repetitive stimulus. Using MMN as a probe into auditory sensory memory, the present study addressed the question of whether the sensory memory representation is formed strictly on the basis of an automatic feature analysis of incoming sensory stimuli or information from long-term memory is also incorporated. Trains of 6 tone bursts (standards with up to 1 deviant per train) separated by 9.5-sec intertrain intervals were presented to subjects performing a visual tracking task and disregarding the auditory stimuli. Trains were grouped into stimulus blocks of 20 trains with a 2-min rest period between blocks. In the Constant-Standard Condition, both standard and deviant stimuli remained fixed across the session, encouraging the formation of a long-term memory representation. To eliminate the carryover of sensory storage from one train to the next, the first 3.6 sec of the intertrain interval was filled with 6 tones of random frequencies. In the Roving-Standard Condition, the standard changed from train to train and the intervening tones were omitted. It was found that MMN was elicited by deviants presented in Position 2 of the trains in the Constant-Standard Condition revealing that a single reminder of the constant standard reactivated the standard-stimulus representation. The MMN amplitude increased across trials within each stimulus block in the Constant- but not in the Roving-Standard Condition, demonstrating long-term learning in that condition (i.e., the standard-stimulus trace indexed by the MMN amplitude benefitted from the presentations of the constant standard in the previous trains). The present results suggest that the transient auditory sensory memory representation underlying the MMN is facilitated by a longer-term representation of the corresponding stimulus.

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The mismatch negativity (MMN): An introduction

The Mismatch Negativity ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198705079.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-40

Author(s):

Risto Näätänen ◽

Teija Kujala ◽

Gregory Light

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Learning And Memory ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Brain Plasticity ◽

Sound Change ◽

Brain Potential ◽

Automatic Response ◽

Sensory Modalities ◽

Sound Discrimination ◽

Auditory Change Detection

In this chapter, the mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related brain potential is introduced. MMN is an automatic response to any sound change generated primarily in auditory and frontal cortices, reflecting auditory change detection and discrimination accuracy. Analogous responses have also been found in other sensory modalities. MMN can, for example, index improvement of sound discrimination as a function of learning or recovery. Consistent with this, MMN appears to index general brain plasticity, essential for learning and memory, and to reflect different cognitive brain disorders. It is elicited irrespective of the direction of attention, being, therefore, a feasible tool for investigating even inattentive participants, such as sleeping infants or comatose patients.

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Audiovisual Events in Sensory Memory

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803.21.34.231 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 21 (3-4) ◽

pp. 231-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Julien Besle ◽

Anne Caclin ◽

Romaine Mayet ◽

Claude Delpuech ◽

Françoise Lecaignard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Auditory System ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Occipital Cortex ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Sensory Memory ◽

Visual Features ◽

Auditory Event ◽

Auditory Sensory Memory ◽

Memory Representations ◽

Auditory Features

The functional properties of the auditory sensory memory have been extensively studied using the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP) and its magnetic counterpart recorded using magneto-encephalography (MEG). It has been found that distinct auditory features (such as frequency or intensity) are encoded separately in sensory memory. Nevertheless, the conjunction of these features (auditory “gestalts”) can also be encoded in auditory sensory memory. Here we investigated how auditory and visual features of bimodal events are represented in sensory memory by recording audiovisual MMNs in two different audiovisual oddball paradigms. The results of a first ERP experiment showed that the sensory memory representations of auditory and visual features of audiovisual events lie within the temporal and occipital cortex, respectively, yet with possible interactions between the processing of the unimodal features. In a subsequent MEG experiment, we found some evidence that audiovisual feature conjunctions could also be represented in sensory memory. These results, thus, extend to the audiovisual domain a number of properties of sensory memory already established within the auditory system.

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