title: Detection of visual change: mismatch or rareness?
abstract: How do we detect changes in our visual environment? By continuously comparing visual inputs to templates of experiences in the immediate past? Or by determining their rareness, how infrequently a visual event occurred previously? Recent results from event-related potentials have been interpreted in favour of the first hypothesis, as in the case of the auditory mismatch negativity. Here we demonstrate that rareness, rather than mismatch with a template, underlies visual change detection. Such rareness is detected through a dedicated mechanism in human visual cortex about 100 ms after the rare event occurs, reflected in the rareness-related negativity (RRN).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychopharmacology, Utrecht University, Sorbonnelaan 16, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands. j.l.kenemans@pharm.uu.nl
authors.forename: J Leon
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Kenemans
authors.forename: Tineke Grent-'t
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Jong
authors.forename: Marinus N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Verbaten
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*