Temporal regularity effects on pre-attentive and attentive processing of deviance

Abstract

Temporal regularity allows predicting the temporal locus of future information thereby potentially facilitating cognitive processing. We applied event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate how temporal regularity impacts pre-attentive and attentive processing of deviance in the auditory modality. Participants listened to sequences of sinusoidal tones differing exclusively in pitch. The inter-stimulus interval (ISI) in these sequences was manipulated to convey either isochronous or random temporal structure. In the pre-attentive session, deviance processing was unaffected by the regularity manipulation as evidenced in three event-related-potentials (ERPs): mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and reorienting negativity (RON). In the attentive session, the P3b was smaller for deviant tones embedded in irregular temporal structure, while the N2b component remained unaffected. These findings confirm that temporal regularity can reinforce cognitive mechanisms associated with the attentive processing of deviance. Furthermore, they provide evidence for the dynamic allocation of attention in time and dissociable pre-attentive and attention-dependent temporal processing mechanisms.Article II

Cerebellum, temporal predictability and the updating of a mental model

“…Clearly, further research has to confirm whether a potential interaction of temporal and formal structure in deviance detection (N2b) is prone to individual differences, as previous results have not reported a similar trend in comparable experimental set-ups (i.e. [24]). Awaiting further evidence, we can therefore only carefully conclude that patients with cerebellar lesions detect deviance comparably to healthy controls as evidenced in a similar N2b response to deviant tones independent of temporal context.…”

“…This particular approach is based on previous work, in which pre-attentive deviance processing as indexed by the P50, N1, mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a and reorienting negativity was contrasted with attentive deviance processing as indexed by the P50, N1, N2b and P3b ERP components [24,27]. Statistically indifferent ERP responses obtained in the pre-attentive context suggest that pre-attentive deviance processing is relatively robust against the manipulation of temporal regularity [24,27], while amplitude modulations in the P3 range for attentive deviance processing may indicate an interaction of formal and temporal stimulus properties at this processing stage [24]. Considering the active experimental task (counting of deviant tones) and the centroparietal topographical distribution of the effect, this finding was interpreted as an attention-dependent differentiation of the P3b component.…”

Early electrophysiological indicators for predictive processing in audition: A review

“…Thus once more, it remains unclear whether the mechanism is truly predictive or "just" retrospective. The retrospective interpretation seems possible when considering a recent study by Schwartze et al (2011). They recorded MMN to frequency deviations in passive and active oddball conditions with isochronous (600 ms inter-stimulus interval, ISI) or random (200-1000 ms ISI) timing.…”

Temporal aspects of prediction in audition: Cortical and subcortical neural mechanisms

“…In other words, it is possible to predict the "what" aspect of future events independent of the "when" aspect of those events. For example, when approaching a traffic light, it is possible to predict a future change in color ("what") without any clue as to when this change will occur, although a growing expectation is naturally developing, resulting in facilitated processing of the "what" aspect due to prior knowledge of the "when" aspect (Schwartze et al, 2011).…”