Mismatch negativity outside strong attentional focus: a commentary on Woldorff et al. (1991)

Several previous papers have suggested that the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential (ERP) component specific to stimulus change after repetition, is fully automatic, that is, not affected by attention. Woldorff, Hackley, and Hillyard (1991), however, report that the MMN elicited by an intensity decrement of a repeating stimulus is considerably attenuated when attention is strongly focused on other stimuli. The present commentary attributes most of this effect to attention effects on ERP components other than the MMN but also admits that some attentional reduction of the MMN component indeed occurred. This attenuation was interpreted by Woldorff et al. as indicating suppression of early sensory processing in unattended channels, but this is contraindicated by some very recent data from the present author's laboratory and elsewhere showing that the MMN to frequency change is not attenuated outside a strong attentional focus. Consequently, an alternative explanation is proposed for Woldorff et al.'s important finding.

[1]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Early selective-attention effects on the evoked potential: A critical review and reinterpretation , 1979, Biological Psychology.

[2]  J. Born,et al.  Cortisol effects on attentional processes in man as indicated by event-related potentials. , 1987, Psychophysiology.

[3]  M. Coles,et al.  Energetics and Human Information Processing , 1986 .

[4]  S. Hillyard,et al.  The effects of channel-selective attention on the mismatch negativity wave elicited by deviant tones. , 1991, Psychophysiology.

[5]  K. Reinikainen,et al.  Separability of different negative components of the event-related potential associated with auditory stimulus processing. , 1986, Psychophysiology.

[6]  M. Donald,et al.  The analysis of stimulus probability inside and outside the focus of attention, as reflected by the auditory N1 and P3 components. , 1981, Canadian journal of psychology.

[7]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Short-term habituation and dishabituation of the mismatch negativity of the ERP. , 1984, Psychophysiology.

[8]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Selective attention to multidimensional auditory stimuli. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[9]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Stimulus deviance and evoked potentials , 1982, Biological Psychology.

[10]  R. Näätänen.  The neural-specificity theory of visual selective attention evaluated: A commentary on Harter and Aine , 1986, Biological Psychology.

[11]  K. Reinikainen,et al.  Do event-related potentials reveal the mechanism of the auditory sensory memory in the human brain? , 1989, Neuroscience Letters.

[12]  R. Näätänen.  Implications of ERP data for psychological theories of attention , 1988, Biological Psychology.

[13]  R. Näätänen.  The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive function , 1990, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[14]  K. Reinikainen,et al.  Right hemisphere dominance of different mismatch negativities. , 1991, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[15]  R Näätänen,et al.  Event-related brain potentials in selective listening to frequent and rare stimuli. , 1990, Psychophysiology.

[16]  J. Born,et al.  The influence of a vasopressin-analogue (DGAVP) on event-related potentials in a stimulus-mismatch paradigm , 1989, Biological Psychology.

[17]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Endogenous brain potentials associated with selective auditory attention. , 1980, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[18]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Auditory frequency discrimination and event-related potentials. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[19]  T. Picton,et al.  The N1 wave of the human electric and magnetic response to sound: a review and an analysis of the component structure. , 1987, Psychophysiology.

[20]  S A Hillyard,et al.  Temporal dynamics of human auditory selective attention. , 1988, Psychophysiology.

[21]  W. Ritter,et al.  The sources of auditory evoked responses recorded from the human scalp. , 1970, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[22]  Mikko Sams,et al.  Event-Related Potentials to Infrequent Changes in Synthesized Phonetic Stimuli , 1990, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[23]  Risto N t nen.  Processing negativity: An evoked-potential reflection. , 1982 .

[24]  R Näätänen,et al.  Event-related brain potentials reflecting processing of relevant and irrelevant stimuli during selective listening. , 1989, Psychophysiology.

[25]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Early selective-attention effect on evoked potential reinterpreted. , 1978, Acta psychologica.

[26]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Cortical activity elicited by changes in auditory stimuli: different sources for the magnetic N100m and mismatch responses. , 1991, Psychophysiology.

[27]  F. Perrin,et al.  Brain generators implicated in the processing of auditory stimulus deviance: a topographic event-related potential study. , 1990, Psychophysiology.