Memory‐based detection of task‐irrelevant visual changes

Abstract

Colored grating patterns were presented to 8 participants in a passive oddball condition (standard, 87.5% and deviant, 12.5%, differing in their color). In the corresponding multicolor condition, grating patterns of eight different colors were presented, their probabilities set equal both to each other and to that of the deviant in the oddball task. Compared with the ERP response elicited by the standard stimulus, the deviant response was negatively displaced over posterior areas, the difference wave peaking at 136 ms. A similar negative wave was obtained when the ERP response to the deviant was compared with the ERP elicited by the same stimulus in the multicolor condition. This result rules out stimulus- (color-) specific refractoriness as a major factor in the generation of the deviance-related posterior negativity. The observed posterior negativity can therefore be regarded as a visual analog of the mismatch negativity (vMMN).

An ERP study of visual change detection: Effects of magnitude of spatial frequency changes on the change-related posterior positivity

“…However, the memory-based interpretation of change-related positivity must be treated with caution at least for two reasons. First, several studies reported that memory-based change detection in the visual modality was reflected by a posterior negativity (i.e., visual MMN) (e.g., Czigler et al, 2002;Heslenfeld, 2003;Winkler et al, 2005). Although the change-related positivity and the visual MMN have a similar latency and scalp-distribution, further study is necessary to systematize the relationship of the two components with inversed polarity.…”

“…Visual MMN at around 100-300 ms can be elicited by the infrequent deviant stimuli presented at unattended locations, which suggests the existence of pre-attentive change detection in the visual modality (e.g., Alho et al, 1992;Czigler et al, 2002Czigler et al, , 2004Heslenfeld, 2003;Kenemans et al, 2003;Lorenzo-Lopez et al, 2004;Mazza et al, 2005;Pazo-Alvarez et al, 2004;Stagg et al, 2004;Winkler et al, 2005). For the functional significance of visual MMN, however, two contrasting hypotheses have been proposed: memory-based comparison hypothesis and different refractoriness state hypothesis.…”

“…For the functional significance of visual MMN, however, two contrasting hypotheses have been proposed: memory-based comparison hypothesis and different refractoriness state hypothesis. Memory-based comparison hypothesis assumes that visual MMN reflects a mismatch signal as a result of comparison between current stimulus input and the memory trace of the preceding stimulus, such as auditory MMN (e.g., Czigler et al, 2002;Heslenfeld, 2003;Winkler et al, 2005). On the other side, according to the different refractoriness state hypothesis, visual MMN reflects less refractoriness of neuronal populations specifically activated by a low-frequent stimulus in comparison with a high-frequent stimulus (e.g., Alho et al, 1992;Kenemans et al, 2003;Mazza et al, 2005).…”

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN): A review and meta-analysis of studies in psychiatric and neurological disorders

“…The results showed that alcohol considerably decreased the vMMN amplitude for changes in peripheral stimulus location and duration whereas that for color change was not affected. The latter might be due to the physical stimulus properties e no reliable vMMN emerged to the green color deviant (compared to the sea-green standard), implying a relatively high level of change is required to elicit the color vMMN at first place (Czigler et al, 2002). An additional aspect (beside basic experimental design) that discriminated the two vMMN and alcohol studies was the usual amount of alcohol the participants consumed being considerably higher in Kenemans et al's study (15e20 standard drinks/week) than in He et al's study (3e12 standard portions/months) that may have led to shorter memory traces to begin with in the more drinking sample (e.g., Ahveninen et al, 1999).…”

Electrophysiological evidence for the left-lateralized effect of language on preattentive categorical perception of color

“…There has been some suggestion that the left cerebral hemispheric areas implicated in important language functions may serve as a top-down control source that modulates the activity level of the visual cortex (24)(25)(26)(27)(28), but little is known about whether this lateralized effect occurs at early, preattentive perceptual processing stages or at postperceptual decision/response phases. Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) is widely held to reflect the brain's early and automatic change in event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to a novel stimulus (29)(30)(31). In the present study, the vMMN component is observed in order to assess the lateralized Whorfian response to task-irrelevant changes in color stimuli.…”