title: Fast determination of MMN and P3a responses to linguistically and emotionally relevant changes in pseudoword stimuli.
abstract: We developed a new multi-feature mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm with two improvements: Firstly, the standard tone, a pseudoword /ta-ta/ was presented with equal probability to the nine linguistically relevant deviants, reducing the recording time by 45%. Secondly, three rare, emotionally valenced stimuli: happy, angry, and sad utterances of the standard pseudoword were included in the sequence. MMN signals reflecting the perceptual properties of the sounds were observed for all stimuli. In addition, P3a signals were observed for the rare emotionally uttered pseudowords. This 28-min paradigm allows a multi-dimensional evaluation of central speech-sound representations (MMN), and attention allocation (P3a) to emotional information content of speech. We recommend this paradigm for studies on subject groups with impairments in language or emotional information processing, such as autism spectrum disorders, attention disorders, and alexithymia.
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: satu.pakarinen@ttl.fi.
authors.forename: Satu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pakarinen
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sokka
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leinikka
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Henelius
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Jussi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Korpela
authors.affiliation: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Minna
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huotilainen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Central auditory processing; Emotion; Event-related potential (ERP); Language; Mismatch negativity (MMN); Multi-feature paradigm