Predictive processing of pitch trends in newborn infants.
The notion of predictive sound processing suggests that the auditory system prepares for upcoming sounds once it has detected regular features within a sequence. Here we investigated whether predictive processes are operating at birth in the human auditory system. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded from healthy newborns to occasional ascending pitch steps occurring in the 2nd or the 5th position within trains of tones with otherwise monotonously descending pitch. If the trains were processed in a predictive manner only deviant pitch steps occurring in the later train position would elicit the discriminative mismatch response (MMR). Deviants delivered in the 5th but not in the 2nd position of the tone trains elicited a significant MMR response. These results suggest that newborns represent pitch trends within sound sequences and they process them in a predictive manner. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention.
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar Tudósok krt. 2, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: haden.gabor@ttk.mta.hu.
Gábor P
GP
Háden
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar Tudósok krt. 2, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary; Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Frankel Leó út 30-34, H-1023 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: nemeth.renata@ttk.mta.hu.
Renáta
R
Németh
Military Hospital, Department of Obstetrics-Gynaecology and Perinatal Intensive Care Unit, Podmaniczky u. 111, H-1062 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: miklos.torok@indamail.hu.
Miklós
M
Török
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar Tudósok krt. 2, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary; Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Egyetem u. 2, H-6722 Szeged, Hungary. Electronic address: winkler.istvan@ttk.mta.hu.
István
I
Winkler
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology*
Abstract rule; ERP; MMN; MMR; Newborn infant; Pitch; Predictive processing