Task instructions modulate the attentional mode affecting the auditory MMN and the semantic N400

Abstract

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been proven to be a useful tool to complement clinical assessment and to detect residual cognitive functions in patients with disorders of consciousness. These ERPs are often recorded using passive or unspecific instructions. Patient data obtained this way are then compared to data from healthy participants, which are usually recorded using active instructions. The present study investigates the effect of attentive modulations and particularly the effect of active vs. passive instruction on the ERP components mismatch negativity (MMN) and N400. A sample of 18 healthy participants listened to three auditory paradigms: an oddball, a word priming, and a sentence paradigm. Each paradigm was presented three times with different instructions: ignoring auditory stimuli, passive listening, and focused attention on the auditory stimuli. After each task, the participants indicated their subjective effort. The N400 decreased from the focused task to the passive task, and was extinct in the ignore task. The MMN exhibited higher amplitudes in the focused and passive task compared to the ignore task. The data indicate an effect of attention on the supratemporal component of the MMN. Subjective effort was equally high in the passive and focused tasks but reduced in the ignore task. We conclude that passive listening during EEG recording is stressful and attenuates ERPs, which renders the interpretation of the results obtained in such conditions difficult.

The N400 Effect during Speaker-Switch—Towards a Conversational Approach of Measuring Neural Correlates of Language

“…The effect on the N400 was further present independent of whether the sentence fragment is uttered by oneself or by another person (i.e., reading aloud or listening). The topographies we found for the N400 effect are in line with earlier studies (Hagoort and Brown, 2000; Kos et al, 2010; for a review see Kutas and Federmeier, 2011; Van den Brink et al, 2012; Wang et al, 2012; Erlbeck et al, 2014). Unexpectedly, we found a large P200 component, which was also enhanced for the reading aloud condition compared to the listening condition.…”

“…It is therefore possible that the participants did not process the sentences in depth. While the control task (word present or absent in sentence) ensured attention to the sequence of words, it did not ensure that the sentence was processed semantically (for a study of effects of task instructions on the N400 see Erlbeck et al, 2014). We expect that questions that require a more in-depth semantic analysis of the sentences (e.g., “Who took the children to the school?”) would lead to an increased level of engagement, in turn, this would drive expectations for the continuation of the sentences (cf.…”

Parallel pitch processing in speech and melody: A study of the interference of musical melody on lexical pitch perception in speakers of Mandarin

“…Another important issue is the fact that the N2b and N400 are sensitive to other processes than the pure linguistic processing. For example, the level of attention required to perform a task is known to modulate the amplitude of both components [72]. In this light, it is possible that the incongruent condition may have been more attention demanding than the congruent condition in both experiments, which led participants to produce enhanced N2b and N400 responses.…”

Attention modulates somatosensory influences in passive speech listening

“…An alternative explanation to the order effect presupposes that starting with holding the spoon over the tongue might result in overall increased attention, affecting the processing of the auditory stimuli. Indeed, although the MMN can be reliably elicited in passive listening conditions, attending to the stimuli results in larger MMN amplitudes (Deguchi et al, 2010;Erlbeck, Kübler, Kotchoubey, & Veser, 2014;Sussman, Ritter, & Vaughan, 1998;Sussman, Winkler, & Wang, 2003;Sussman, 2013;Szymanski, Yund, & Woods, 1999;Tervaniemi et al, 2009;Woldorff, Hackley, & Hillyard, 1991;Woldorff, Hillyard, Gallen, Hampson, & Bloom, 1998). Participants starting with the spoon over the tongue may be more attentive to the auditory stimulation throughout the experimental situation, even when the spoon was removed.…”