The effect of perceptual grouping on the mismatch negativity

• Published in: Psychophysiology Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 316 - 324
• Main Authors: GAETA, HELEN, FRIEDMAN, DAVID, RITTER, WALTER, CHENG, JEFF
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Cambridge University Press 01.03.2001; Blackwell Publishing; Blackwell
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aging; Aging - psychology; Auditory Perception - physiology; Auditory sensory memory; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Electrophysiology; ERPs; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Memory - physiology; MMN; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; ERPs; Aging; Auditory sensory memory; MMN; Human; Hearing; Stimulus grouping; Memory; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; Perception; Cognition; Event evoked potential; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0048-5772; 1540-5958; 1469-8986
• DOI: 10.1111/1469-8986.3820316

The mismatch negativity (MMN) was used as a probe to evaluate changes, with age, of transient auditory memory. Subjects were 16 young (M = 23 years) and 16 old (M = 72 years) people. Standard auditory stimuli were presented in trains of eight tones (1000 Hz) with either a 1-s or 8-s intertrain interval (ITI). Occasionally, the first stimulus of a train was replaced with a 1200 Hz tone (deviant). The MMN was recorded while subjects watched a silent movie and ignored the sounds. Both groups of subjects showed an MMN response to deviant stimuli under the 1-s ITI condition, but MMNs were only seen for some subjects under the 8-s ITI condition. After MMN recording, subjects performed a discrimination task to the tones used for recording MMNs. Accuracy for both groups was near 100% at both ITIs. These results suggest that generation of MMN is a function of the perceptual grouping of the acoustical stimuli and that the integrity of perceptual grouping may be maintained with increased age.