Asymmetry of automatic change detection shown by the visual mismatch negativity: An additional feature is identified faster than missing features

Czigler, István; Sulykos, István; Kecskés-Kovács, Krisztina

doi:10.3758/s13415-013-0193-3

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Full T3 deviants may have elicited greater MMNs because they have more complex contours than the other tones. It has been shown that the MMN is sensitive to the number of features in the standards and deviants: a deviant with an added feature (e.g., deviants consisting of combined white noise and sine tones after standards consisting of only white noise or only sine) elicits a larger MMN than the reverse case [3,12]. T3, which has a falling-rising contour when pronounced in isolation or phrasefinally, may also have been considered to have an additional phonetic feature by the listeners.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

Politzer-Ahles

Schluter

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Most investigations of the representation and processing of speech sounds focus on their segmental representations, and considerably less is known about the representation of suprasegmental phenomena (e.g., Mandarin tones). Here we examine the mismatch negativity (MMN) response to the contrast between Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) and other tones using a passive oddball paradigm. Because the MMN response has been shown to be sensitive to the featural contents of speech sounds in a way that is compatible with theories of phonological representations, here, we test the predictions of such theories regarding suprasegmental phenomena. Assuming T3 to be underspecified in Mandarin (because it has variable surface representations and low pitch), we predicted that an asymmetric MMN response would be elicited when T3 is contrasted with another tone. In 2 of our 3 experiments, this was observed, but in non-Mandarin-speaking participants as well as native speakers, suggesting that the locus of the effect was perceptual (acoustic or phonetic) rather than phonological. In a third experiment, the predicted asymmetry was limited to native speakers. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing phonological and perceptual contributions to MMN asymmetries, but also demonstrate a role of abstract phonological representations in which certain information is underspecified in long-term memory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

Politzer-Ahles

Schluter

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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show abstract

“…This means that hearing a deviant /f/ token in a stream of /s/ tokens could amount to detecting a decrease in energy or an absence of information, whereas hearing a deviant /s/ token in a stream of /f/ tokens would amount to detecting an increase of energy or an addition of information. 8 There is indeed ample evidence that a deviant which is missing an acoustic feature present in the standards elicits an attenuated MMN (or no MMN at all) compared to a deviant which has an additional acoustic feature not present in the standards (Nordby, Hammerborg, Roth, & Hugdahl, 1994 ; Sabri & Campbell, 2000 ; Timm, Weise, Grimm, & Schröger, 2011 ; see also Czigler, Sulykos, & Kecskés-Kovács, 2014 , for a corresponding effect in the visual counterpart of the MMN). While these studies all used non-linguistic stimuli, similar asymmetries based on feature salience have been seen for linguistic stimuli in behavioural studies (Nielsen, 2011 ; Nielsen & Scarborough, 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No place for /h/: an ERP investigation of English fricative place features

Schluter

Politzer-Ahles

Almeida

2016

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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The representational format of speech units in long-term memory is a topic of debate. We present novel event-related brain potential evidence from the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm that is compatible with abstract, non-redundant feature-based models like the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL). First, we show that the fricatives /s/ and /f/ display an asymmetric pattern of MMN responses, which is predicted if /f/ has a fully specified place of articulation ([Labial]) but /s/ does not ([Coronal], which is lexically underspecified). Second, we show that when /s/ and /h/ are contrasted, no such asymmetric MMN pattern occurs. The lack of asymmetry suggests both that (i) oral and laryngeal articulators are represented distinctly and that (ii) /h/ has no oral place of articulation in long-term memory. The lack of asymmetry between /s/ and /h/ is also in-line with traditional feature-geometric models of lexical representations.

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“…As an inherent problem of this procedure, the to-be-compared ERPs are selected from highly different sequences. Furthermore, in many cases it is difficult to vary properly the stimuli of the control sequence (e.g., in case of female vs. male photographs, [ 24 ]; feature absence vs. feature presence in vMMN studies, [ 25 ]). Our paradigm attempts to solve the low-level adaptation issue using the opposite logic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual mismatch negativity to vanishing parts of objects in younger and older adults

2017

Self Cite

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We investigated visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) to vanishing parts of continuously present objects by comparing the event-related potentials (ERPs) to infrequently (deviant) and frequently (standard) disappearing parts of the objects. This paradigm both excludes low-level stimulus-specific adaptation differences between the responses to deviants and standards, and increases the ecological validity of the stimuli. In comparison to frequently disappearing parts of the stimulus objects, infrequently vanishing parts elicited posterior negative event-related brain activity (vMMN). However, no vMMN emerged to the reappearance of the same parts of the objects. We compared the ERPs of an older and a younger sample of participants. In the 120–180 ms time period vMMN was similar in the two age groups, but in the 180–220 ms time period vMMN emerged only in the younger participants. We consider this difference as an index of more elaborate automatic processing of infrequent stimulus changes in younger adults.

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Asymmetry of automatic change detection shown by the visual mismatch negativity: An additional feature is identified faster than missing features

Abstract: In two experiments, we demonstrated that an asymmetric effect of brain electric

Cited by 9 publications

References 31 publications

Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

No place for /h/: an ERP investigation of English fricative place features

Visual mismatch negativity to vanishing parts of objects in younger and older adults

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