S12-1. MMN in psychological research – A study of change in MMN peak latencies

Abstract

In order to investigate how sound representations are compressed in sensory memory, we examined mismatch negativity (MMN), ERP component reflecting neural representations in sensory memory. Yabe et al. (2005) showed that the MMNm peak latencies by reversing standards to deviants from oddball sequences did not reflect physical time flow, and they suggested that the temporal information could be compressed in sensory memory. However, it is not clear that factors of the asymmetrical change in MMN peak latencies. The experiment 1 compared the conditions of the stimuli that included a silence gap and it replaced by a tone segment which was decreased intensity. As a result, duplicates as the finding of Yabe et al., and it indicates that the whole stimulus duration rather than only gap duration is compressed in sensory memory. The experiment 2 showed that the stimuli’s saliency affects the peak latency of MMN, examined by changing in sound intensity. The experiment 3 that examined to effect of stimuli’s duration, suggested that stimuli’s temporal element and saliency affect the asymmetrical change in MMN peak latencies. These findings suggest the temporal element of whole auditory stimulus are compress in neural representations and it is influenced by a saliency of stimulus.