Does naturally occurring high salience for speech sounds impact the primacy bias observed in mismatch negativity (MMN)?

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Does naturally occurring high salience for speech sounds impact the primacy bias observed in mismatch negativity (MMN)? Daniel Mullens1, 2*, Alex Provost1, 2, István Winkler3, 4 and Juanita Todd1, 2* 1 University of Newcastle, Australia 2 Priority Research Centre for Brain and Mental Health , Australia 3 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Hungary 4 Institute of Psychology, Hungary Background: Mismatch negativity (MMN) is elicited when a "standard" regularity within an acoustic sequence is violated. MMN is large if a deviation is highly different physically and/or is very rare. MMN size is also proportional to pattern stability over time; however, our research has demonstrated an order-driven bias affecting how stability modulates MMN size. In sequences of pure tones alternating roles as standard and deviant, only MMN to the first encountered deviant tone-type is modulated by pattern stability. Our prior research has shown that assigning behavioural salience to the tones (in a target detection task) disrupted this bias. The present study was designed to determine whether the bias would be observed when the sequence contained speech sounds (high in natural salience) instead of pure tones. Methods: Participants (n=7) heard sequences in which two phonemes (/a/ and /i/) alternated roles as a repetitive standard (p= 0.875) and a rare deviant (p=0.125). Roles alternated in blocks in slow or fast changing sequences (every 2.4 vs 0.8 min, respectively). MMN to each sound as a deviant was compared between fast and slow sequences and at transition points (early in a block) versus later when the roles stabilized. Results: Two patterns defining the bias were significant. An order x sequence effect was present at transition points with MMN to the first deviant larger in slow than fast sequences but did not differ for the first standard as a later deviant (p<.05). For the first deviant, MMN in slow sequence blocks was large at transitions and stayed large over a block while that to the first standard as a later deviant started small at transition and grew with stability (p<.05). Discussion: The data expose that the same order-driven bias seen in our prior studies also occurs for speech sounds. Initial exposure within a sound sequence produces a long timescale modulation of how perceptual inference is reflected in MMN size. Keywords: salience, stability, MMN, Primacy bias, MMN Size Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Memory and Learning Citation: Mullens D, Provost A, Winkler I and Todd J (2015). Does naturally occurring high salience for speech sounds impact the primacy bias observed in mismatch negativity (MMN)?. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00228 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Mr. Daniel Mullens, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia, c3072889@uon.edu.au Dr. Juanita Todd, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia, juanita.todd@newcastle.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Daniel Mullens Alex Provost István Winkler Juanita Todd Google Daniel Mullens Alex Provost István Winkler Juanita Todd Google Scholar Daniel Mullens Alex Provost István Winkler Juanita Todd PubMed Daniel Mullens Alex Provost István Winkler Juanita Todd Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.