The human brain processes repeated auditory feature conjunctions of low sequential probability.
The human brain is known to preattentively trace repeated sounds as holistic entities. It is not clear, however, whether the same holds true if these sounds are rare among other repeated sounds. Adult humans passively listened to a repeated tone with frequent (standard) and rare (deviant) conjunctions of its three features. Six equiprobable variants per conjunction type were assigned from a space built from these features so that the standard variants (P=0.15 each) were not inseparably traceable by means of their linear alignment in this space. Differential scalp-recorded event-related potentials to deviants indicate that the standard variants were traced as repeated wholes despite their preperceptual distinctiveness and resulting rarity among one another.
Ruusuvirta
Timo
T
Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 9, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. timo.ruusuvirta@cbru.helsinki.fi
Huotilainen
Minna
M
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology