Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation: Developing an objective measure of short term memory for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component is regarded as a prediction error signal elicited by events violating the sequential regularities of environmental stimulation. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of familiarity on the vMMN. Stimuli were patterns comprised of familiar (N) or unfamiliar (И) letters. In a passive oddball paradigm, letters (N and И) were presented as either standard or deviant in separate conditions. VMMNs emerged in both conditions; peak latency of vMMN was shorter to the И deviant compared to the vMMN elicited by the N deviant. To test the orientation-specific effect of the oblique lines on the vMMN, we introduced a control experiment. In the control experiment, the patterns were constructed solely from oblique lines, identical to the oblique lines of the N and И stimuli. Contrary to the first experiment, there was no significant difference between the vMNNs elicited by the two orientations. Therefore, the differences in vMMNs to И and N deviants are not attributable to the physical difference between the И and N stimuli. Consequently, the vMMN is sensitive to the familiarity of the stimuli.This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention.