Mismatch response of the human brain to changes in sound location.
WE investigated whether the enhanced negativity of the human event-related brain potential elicited by changes in auditory lateralization is due to a higher-order change-detection process or whether it can be explained exclusively in terms of selective sensory adaptation. Infrequent changes in lateralization of a repetitive standard tone, generated by changes in interaural time differences, elicited a frontocentrally distributed negative brain wave in the 100-250 ms range relative to stimulus onset. This brain wave was also elicited when possible sensory adaptation was prevented by controlling for the state of refractoriness of location-specific neurones. The results demonstrate that changes in lateralization elicit a genuine mismatch negativity (MMN), indicating the activity of an automatic higher-order change-detection process.
Schröger
E
E
Institute of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany.
Wolff
C
C
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D012032:Refractory Period, Electrophysiological / Q000502:physiology; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology*