title: Representation of abstract attributes of auditory stimuli in the human brain.
abstract: Representations of abstract attributes of auditory stimuli in the human brain were demonstrated using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential component elicited by a change in a repetitive sound. Stimuli were pairs of sinusoidal tones. There were two types of tone pairs in each block, standard (p = 85%) and deviant pairs (p = 15%), delivered in a random order. Standard and deviant tone pairs differed only in the direction of within-pair frequency change. In addition, the frequency levels of both the standard and deviant pairs varied randomly within a wide range in a block; thus the standard pairs shared the direction of the within-pair frequency change but not the absolute frequency level. Correspondingly, the deviant pairs only shared the opposite direction of the within-pair change. Nevertheless, the deviant tone pairs elicited MMN, implying that even the direction of the within-pair frequency change of the standard stimuli, and not just their absolute frequencies, developed a neural representation.
authors: University of Helsinki, Department of Psychology, Finland.
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Saarinen
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Paavilainen
authors: E
authors: E
authors: Schöger
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Tervaniemi
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Näätänen
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000166:cytology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004566:Electrodes; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D006801:Humans