Passive Oddball Paradigm Research Articles

Automatic processing of unattended mean emotion: Evidence from visual mismatch responses

The mean emotion from multiple facial expressions can be extracted rapidly and precisely. However, it remains debated whether mean emotion processing is automatic which can occur under no attention. To address this question, we used a passive oddball paradigm and recorded event-related brain potentials when participants discriminated the changes in the central fixation while a set of four faces was presented in the periphery. The face set consisted of one happy and three angry expressions (mean negative) or one angry and three happy expressions (mean positive), and the mean negative and mean positive face sets were shown with a probability of 20% (deviant) and 80% (standard) respectively in the sequence, or the vice versa. The cluster-based permutation analyses showed that the visual mismatch negativity started early at around 92 ms and was also observed in later time windows when the mean emotion was negative, while a mismatch positivity was observed at around 168- 266 ms when the mean emotion was positive. The results suggest that there might be different mechanisms underlying the processing of mean negative and mean positive emotions. More importantly, the brain can detect the changes in the mean emotion automatically, and ensemble coding for multiple facial expressions can occur in an automatic fashion without attention.

Automatic Change Detection in Interwoven Sequences: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Study.

In this study, we investigated whether the cognitive system, known to be able to register regular visual event sequences and the violation of these sequences automatically, had the capacity of processing two sequences simultaneously. To this end, we measured the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of ERPs as interwoven event sequences simultaneously presented to the left and right side of the screen. One of the sequences consisted of geometric patterns (diamonds); the other, photographs of human faces. In successive cycles, parts of the stimuli vanished and then re-appeared (the OFF/ON method). The vanishing parts served as either standard (frequently vanishing parts) or infrequent (deviant) events, but these events were task-irrelevant. The 20 adult participants (age 21.40 ± 2.72 years) performed a visual tracking task, with the OFF/ON task being a passive oddball paradigm. According to the results, both OFF and ON events, and both diamond and face stimuli elicited the vMMN component, showing that the system underlying this activity is capable of processing two event sequences if the sequences consist of fairly different kind of objects as stimuli. The sLORETA analysis showed that the source of vMMN was more frequent contralaterally to the deviant event, and the sources comprised loci from ventral and dorsal structures, as well as some anterior loci.

Effects of auditory processing ability on the phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone by Thai speakers: An ERP study

This study investigated how Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers’ auditory processing ability affects their phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone. The participants were 20 native Mandarin speakers and 19 Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers. A 10-step computer synthesized Tone 1 (T1)–Tone 2 (T2) continuum was manipulated for identification task. The stimulus 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 from the T1–T2 continuum were used in a multi-feature passive oddball ERP paradigm, encompassing within-category and across-category stimuli with equivalent large-scale and small-scale acoustic intervals. We used pitch discrimination, melody reproduction, and rhythm reproduction to assess participants’ auditory processing ability. The identification results showed that Mandarin-naïve Thai speakers’ exhibit a weaker categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin tones compared to the native Mandarin speakers, a pattern consistent with ERP results observed at both sensor and source levels. Further analysis revealed higher auditory processing ability leads to enhanced CP of Mandarin tone for learners from Thai, and the same improvement is observed in the melody memory for acoustic processing of Mandarin tone. These findings add to our understanding on how individual differences influence phonological and acoustic processing of Mandarin tone during the initial stage of second speech learning.

Development of language-specific stress discrimination in European Portuguese: an electrophysiological study.

European Portuguese (EP) is a language with unpredictable stress. Previous behavioral studies have shown that without vowel reduction EP adult speakers displayed a stress deafness effect akin to that observed in speakers of fixed-stress languages, suggesting that vowel quality may be the primary cue for stress discrimination in EP. However, an event-related potentials (ERPs) study reported that EP adults were able to discriminate stress contrasts pre-attentively in the absence of vowel quality cues. These results seemed to indicate that EP adult speakers may attend to different cues in the attentive and pre-attentive stress perception. Moreover, both the behavioral and ERPs studies have revealed a processing advantage for iambic stress, which could not be predicted by the rhythmic properties of EP, the language-specific weighting of stress correlates, or the frequency distributions of trochaic and iambic stresses in EP. A recent eye-tracking study has found that EP-learning infants at 5-6 months already exhibited an iambic preference in the absence of vowel reduction, manifested by longer looking time at the iambic stress. The present study used a passive oddball paradigm to examine pre-attentive stress perception without vowel quality cues by 5-to-7-month-old EP-learning infants. Results from twenty-two participants showed that both the trochaic and iambic conditions yielded a positive discrimination response (p-MMR). In addition, the iambic condition elicited a prominent late discriminative negativity (LDN) as well as a P3a component. Our findings present the first evidence for reciprocal discrimination of stress patterns in EP-learning infants, showing that, as in adult speakers, stress processing might also differ at the pre-attentive and attentive stages in infants. Importantly, the stress perception ability in EP-learning infants seems to develop asymmetrically, with an advantage for the iambic stress pattern. The present study highlighted the role of language-specific factors that may affect developing stress perception.

Intonation processing of interrogative words in Mandarin: an event-related potential study.

Intonation is the variation in pitch used in speech, which forms the premise of tonal and non-tonal languages. Interrogative words are words that introduce questions. Previous research lacks clarity regarding the specific cues used in the processing of word intonation. To address this gap, this study used the event-related potential electroencephalogram (EEG) research method to explore the intonation processing of tone two (mid-rising) interrogative words in Mandarin. For this, the word "shui," meaning "who," was selected as the experimental material. To avoid the influence of the environment, gender, and semantics, the Hum version, corresponding to the stimulus material, was also adopted for the experiment. This study used a passive oddball paradigm to examine the clues of intonation information processing in automatic cognitive processing through amplitude, latency, time window, and evoked location potential mismatch negativity. The standard stimulus was the declarative intonation with a high probability of occurrence (90%), and the deviant stimulus was the interrogative intonation with a low probability of occurrence (10%). In the time window of 370-450 ms, the mismatch negativity was found at the F3, F4, C3, Cz, and C4 channels. The findings show that, in the passive oddball paradigm, lexical semantics are essential for intonation processing at the pre-attentive level, which is dominated by the frontal and central areas of the brain. The results support the functional and comprehensive hypotheses that the processing of intonation is based on the function of language and that bilateral regions are involved in this processing. This study makes an important contribution by providing event-related potential evidence that lexical semantics plays a key role in the pre-attentive processing of intonation, as shown by the significant differences between semantic and non-semantic conditions.

Vowel perception in multilingual speakers: ERP evidence from Polish, English and Norwegian.

Research on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) in monolingual and bilingual speakers has shown significant differences in L1 versus L2 phonemic perception. In this study, we examined whether the MMN response is sensitive to the differences between L1, L2 and L3/Ln. We compared bioelectrical brain activity in response to changes in pairs of vowels produced in three different languages. Specifically, multilingual participants listened to selected vowel contrasts in their L1 Polish, L2 English and L3/Ln Norwegian presented within the passive-oddball paradigm. Results revealed that the MMN was modulated by language: we observed significant differences between L2 English and L3/Ln Norwegian as well as between L1 Polish and L3/Ln Norwegian. For L3/Ln Norwegian, the MMN response had a lower amplitude when compared with L2 English and L1 Polish. Such findings suggest that foreign language status (i.e., L2 vs. L3/Ln) modulates early auditory processing.

The Audiovisual Mismatch Negativity in Predictive and Non-Predictive Speech Stimuli in Older Adults With and Without Hearing Loss.

Adults with aging-related hearing loss (ARHL) experience adaptive neural changes to optimize their sensory experiences; for example, enhanced audiovisual (AV) and predictive processing during speech perception. The mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential is an index of central auditory processing; however, it has not been explored as an index of AV and predictive processing in adults with ARHL. In a pilot study we examined the AV MMN in two conditions of a passive oddball paradigm- one AV condition in which the visual aspect of the stimulus can predict the auditory percept and one AV control condition in which the visual aspect of the stimulus cannot predict the auditory percept. In adults with ARHL, evoked responses in the AV conditions occurred in the early MMN time window while the older adults with normal hearing showed a later MMN. Findings suggest that adults with ARHL are sensitive to AV incongruity, even when the visual is not predictive of the auditory signal. This suggests that predictive coding for AV speech processing may be heightened in adults with ARHL. This paradigm can be used in future studies to measure treatment related changes, for example via aural rehabilitation, in older adults with ARHL.

Twenty-month-olds categorically discriminate similar sounding vowels regardless of vocabulary level, an event related potentials (ERP) study.

The current study investigated whether vocabulary relates to phonetic categorization at neural level in early childhood. Electoencephalogram (EEG) responses were collected from 53 Dutch 20-month-old children in a passive oddball paradigm, in which they were presented with two nonwords "giep" [ɣip] and "gip" [ɣɪp] that were contrasted solely by the vowel. In the multiple-speaker condition, both nonwords were produced by twelve different speakers; while, in the single-speaker condition, one single token of each word was used as stimuli. Infant positive mismatch responses (p-MMR) were elicited in both conditions without significant amplitude differences. When the infants were median split based on vocabulary level, the large and small vocabulary groups showed comparable p-MMR amplitudes yet different scalp distribution in both conditions. These results suggest successful phonetic categorization of native similar sounding vowels at 20 months, and a close relationship between speech categorization and vocabulary development.

Attention Modulates the Role of Speakers' Voice Identity and Linguistic Information in Spoken Word Processing: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials.

The human voice usually contains two types of information: linguistic and identity information. However, whether and how linguistic information interacts with identity information remains controversial. This study aimed to explore the processing of identity and linguistic information during spoken word processing by considering the modulation of attention. We conducted two event-related potentials (ERPs) experiments in the study. Different speakers (self, friend, and unfamiliar speakers) and emotional words (positive, negative, and neutral words) were used to manipulate the identity and linguistic information. With the manipulation, Experiment 1 explored the identity and linguistic information processing with a word decision task that requires participants' explicit attention to linguistic information. Experiment 2 further investigated the issue with a passive oddball paradigm that requires rare attention to either the identity or linguistic information. Experiment 1 revealed an interaction among speaker, word type, and hemisphere in N400 amplitudes but not in N100 and P200, which suggests that identity information interacted with linguistic information at the later stage of spoken word processing. The mismatch negativity results of Experiment 2 showed no significant interaction between speaker and word pair, which indicates that identity and linguistic information were processed independently. The identity information would interact with linguistic information during spoken word processing. However, the interaction was modulated by the task demands on attention involvement. We propose an attention-modulated explanation to explain the mechanism underlying identity and linguistic information processing. Implications of our findings are discussed in light of the integration and independence theories.

Automatic detection of irregular vanishing and reappearing parts of objects in two interwoven sequences: A visual mismatch negativity study.

The cognitive system automatically develops predictions on the basis of regularities of event sequences and reacts to the violation of these predictions. In the visual modality, the electrophysiological signature of this process is an event-related potential component, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). So far, we have no data, whether the system underlying vMMN is capable of dealing with more than one event sequence simultaneously. To disclose this aspect of the capacity of the system, in a passive oddball paradigm, we presented two interwoven sequences. The stimuli were objects (diamond patterns with their diagonals), one of the sequences was presented to the left side and the other to the right side of the visual field. From time to time, two parallel lines of the diamonds disappeared (OFF event) and then reappeared (ON event). The frequently vanishing pair of lines on the left side (standard) was identical to the rarely vanishing lines of the objects on the right side (deviant) and vice versa. We found that deviant ON events elicited vMMN only for left-side deviants and deviant OFF events elicited vMMN only for right-side deviants. The standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) source localization showed vMMN sources both in posterior visual structures and in anterior locations, and activity was stronger in the hemisphere contralateral to the deviant event. According to the results, the system underlying vMMN is capable of dealing with two sequences, but within a sequence, it detected only one type (either OFF or ON) of deviancy.

Distinct Neural Resource Involvements but Similar Hemispheric Lateralization Patterns in Pre-Attentive Processing of Speaker's Identity and Linguistic Information.

The speaker's identity (who the speaker is) and linguistic information (what the speaker is saying) are essential to daily communication. However, it is unclear whether and how listeners process the two types of information differently in speech perception. The present study adopted a passive oddball paradigm to compare the identity and linguistic information processing concerning neural resource involvements and hemispheric lateralization patterns. We used two female native Mandarin speakers' real and pseudo-Mandarin words to differentiate the identity from linguistic (phonological and lexical) information. The results showed that, in real words, the phonological-lexical variation elicited larger MMN amplitudes than the identity variation. In contrast, there were no significant MMN amplitude differences between the identity and phonological variation in pseudo words. Regardless of real or pseudo words, the identity and linguistic variation did not elicit MMN amplitudes differences between the left and right hemispheres. Taken together, findings from the present study indicated that the identity information recruited similar neural resources to the phonological information but different neural resources from the lexical information. However, the identity and linguistic information processing did not show a particular hemispheric lateralization pattern at an early pre-attentive speech perception stage. The findings revealed similarities and differences between linguistic and non-linguistic information processing, contributing to a better understanding of speech perception and spoken word recognition.

Reproducibility of Test-Retest Cortical Evoked Responses in Patients with Focal Epilepsy

This exploratory study examined the short-term reliability of cortical auditory evoked responses recorded from patients undergoing whole-head scalp elec-troencephalography (EEG) monitoring to assess their candidacy for surgical treatment of intractable focal seizures. Participants were 26 patients with either left-sided (N = 13) or right-sided focal epilepsy admitted to the hospital for continuous scalp EEG monitoring for possible epilepsy surgery planning. Cortical auditory evoked responses were recorded over multiple days from scalp EEG electrodes using tones presented binaurally in a passive oddball paradigm. Test-retest intervals were 1 - 6 days (mean 2 days). Test-retest reproducibility of the auditory N1 response was assessed by paired t-test (latency) and cross-correlation analysis (amplitude and latency). Within-patient comparisons of test-retest auditory N1 peak latencies revealed no significant differences. The cross-correlation coefficient indicated high test-retest reproducibility of the N1 waveform (rcc = 0.88). Seizure lateralization was not associated with asymmetries in N1 latencies or amplitudes. An N1 amplitude asymmetry (right > left) in patients with focal seizures originating from the left hemisphere was initially observed, but disappeared when patients with prior resections were excluded, suggesting that reduced left hemisphere tissue volume may account for the smaller N1 amplitudes. Test-retest reliability of cortical auditory evoked responses was unexpectedly high in patients with focal epilepsy regardless of seizure lateralization or localization. These findings challenge the view that neural responses are intrinsically unstable (unreliable) in patients with seizures.

Traditional Buddhist meditations reduce mismatch negativity in experienced monk- practitioners

Thousand-year-old Buddhist traditions have developed a wide range of methods for the subjective exploration of consciousness through meditation. Combining their subjective research with the possibilities of modern neuroscience can help us better understand the physiological mechanisms of consciousness. Therefore, we have been guided by specifically Buddhist explanations when studying the physiological mechanisms of altered states of consciousness during Buddhist meditations. In Buddhism, meditations are generally divided into two large categories: (1) one-pointed concentration and (2) analytical meditation. Maintaining both one-pointed concentration and analytical meditation on ‘bodhicitta’ (“the thought of awakening”) and ‘emptiness’ is a necessary condition for transitioning into tantric practices. Tantric practices involve sophisticated visualizations of Buddhist deities, the ‘energy structure’ of the human body, and the visualization of the stage-by-stage process of dying accompanied with the dissolution of body elements. According to Buddhism, these meditations are characterized by the gradual withdrawal from “gross levels” of consciousness associated with the five senses. From a psychophysiological perspective, this withdrawal of sensory consciousness can be considered as the decrease of sensory stimuli recognition and attentional disengagement from the external world. We concentrated on how considered meditations affect sensory and cognitive processing of external stimuli. Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in the passive oddball paradigm were studied both during meditations and in a controlled state of relaxed wakefulness. It was shown with a group of 115 Buddhist monks that during meditation, mismatch negativity amplitudes, amplitudes of N1 and P2 components of ERPs to deviant stimuli, and the amplitudes of the P3a component to novel stimuli all decrease. These outcomes suggest that the considered Buddhist meditations, compared to the control state of relaxed wakefulness, are accompanied by a decrease in physiological processes responsible for maintaining attention on the outside world and recognizing changes in the stream of sensory stimuli.

Automatic change detection: Mismatch negativity and the now-classic Rensink, O'Reagan, and Clark (1997) stimuli.

Change blindness experiments had demonstrated that detection of significant changes in natural images is extremely difficult when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene. On the other hand, research on the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs) identified sensitivity to events (deviants) different from the regularity of stimulus sequences (standards), even if the deviant and standard events are non-attended. The present study sought to investigate the apparent controversy between the experience under the change blindness paradigm and the ERP results. To this end, the stimulus of Rensink, O’Reagen, and Clark (1997) was adapted to a passive oddball ERP paradigm to investigate the underlying processing differences between the standard (original) and deviant (altered) stimuli measured in 22 subjects. Posterior negativity within the 280–330 ms latency range emerged as the difference between ERPs elicited by standard and deviant stimuli, identified as visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). These results raise the possibility that change blindness is not based on the lack of detailed visual representations or the deficiency of comparing two representations. However, effective discrimination of the two scene versions requires considerable frequency differences between them.

Rapid pre-attentive processing of a famous speaker: Electrophysiological effects of Angela Merkel's voice

The recognition of human speakers by their voices is a remarkable cognitive ability. Previous research has established a voice area in the right temporal cortex involved in the integration of speaker-specific acoustic features. This integration appears to occur rapidly, especially in case of familiar voices. However, the exact time course of this process is less well understood. To this end, we here investigated the automatic change detection response of the human brain while listening to the famous voice of German chancellor Angela Merkel, embedded in the context of acoustically matched voices. A classic passive oddball paradigm contrasted short word stimuli uttered by Merkel with word stimuli uttered by two unfamiliar female speakers. Electrophysiological voice processing indices from 21 participants were quantified as mismatch negativities (MMNs) and P3a differences. Cortical sources were approximated by variable resolution electromagnetic tomography. The results showed amplitude and latency effects for both MMN and P3a: The famous (familiar) voice elicited a smaller but earlier MMN than the unfamiliar voices. The P3a, by contrast, was both larger and later for the familiar than for the unfamiliar voices. Familiar-voice MMNs originated from right-hemispheric regions in temporal cortex, overlapping with the temporal voice area, while unfamiliar-voice MMNs stemmed from left superior temporal gyrus. These results suggest that the processing of a very famous voice relies on pre-attentive right temporal processing within the first 150 ms of the acoustic signal. The findings further our understanding of the neural dynamics underlying familiar voice processing.

Event-Related Potential Evidence for Involuntary Consciousness During Implicit Memory Retrieval.

Classical notion claims that a memory is implicit if has nothing to do with consciousness during the information retrieval from storage, or is otherwise explicit. Here, we demonstrate event-related potential evidence for involuntary consciousness during implicit memory retrieval. We designed a passive oddball paradigm for retrieval of implicit memory in which an auditory stream of Shepard tones with musical pitch interval contrasts were delivered to the subjects. These contrasts evoked a mismatch negativity response, which is an event-related potential and a neural marker of implicit memory, in the subjects with long-term musical training, but not in the subjects without. Notably, this response was followed by a salient P3 component which implies involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval. Finally, source analysis of the P3 revealed moving dipoles from the frontal lobe to the insula, a brain region closely related to conscious attention. Our study presents a case of involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval and suggests a potential challenge to the classical definition of implicit memory.

Later but Not Weaker: Neural Categorization of Native Vowels of Children at Familial Risk of Dyslexia

Although allophonic speech processing has been hypothesized to be a contributing factor in developmental dyslexia, experimental evidence is limited and inconsistent. The current study compared the categorization of native similar sounding vowels of typically developing (TD) children and children at familial risk (FR) of dyslexia. EEG response was collected in a non-attentive passive oddball paradigm from 35 TD and 35 FR Dutch 20-month-old infants who were matched on vocabulary. The children were presented with two nonwords “giep” [ɣip] and “gip” [ɣIp] that contrasted solely with respect to the vowel. In the multiple-speaker condition, both nonwords were produced by twelve different speakers while in the single-speaker condition, single tokens of each word were used as stimuli. For both conditions and for both groups, infant positive mismatch response (p-MMR) was elicited, and the p-MMR amplitude was comparable between the two groups, although the FR children had a later p-MMR peak than the TD children in the multiple-speaker condition. These findings indicate that FR children are able to categorize speech sounds, but that they may do so in a more effortful way than TDs.

Semantic Transparency in Chinese Compound Word Processing: Evidence from Mismatch Negativity

This study examined how semantic transparency modulated the processing of spoken Chinese compound words with event-related potential (ERP) recording. A reverse-block passive oddball paradigm was adopted to elicit mismatch negativity (MMN), which responds to holistic and combinatorial processing in opposite directions. Specifically, linguistic inputs that are processed as holistic lexical representations will elicit stronger MMNs (lexical enhancement) than those that do not have such representations. In contrast, when they are processed by combining the constituents, smaller MMNs will be elicited (combinatorial reduction) as compared to non-combinable inputs. We compared the strengths of MMNs among transparent words, opaque words, and pseudocompounds (that did not have lexical representations and were non-combinable). It was shown that transparent words triggered smaller MMNs than pseudocompounds, which supported combinatorial processing. Opaque words did not differ from pseudocompounds, which was interpreted as parallel employment of the holistic and combinatorial processing routes. Overall, the results are consistent with the idea that native Chinese speakers routinely attempt to process Chinese compound words by retrieving and combining morphemes. However, because the meanings of opaque words are irrelevant to their constituent morphemes, Chinese speakers must construct and retrieve their holistic representations to ensure accurate processing.

Predictive Processing in Poetic Language: Event-Related Potentials Data on Rhythmic Omissions in Metered Speech.

Predictions during language comprehension are currently discussed from many points of view. One area where predictive processing may play a particular role concerns poetic language that is regularized by meter and rhyme, thus allowing strong predictions regarding the timing and stress of individual syllables. While there is growing evidence that these prosodic regularities influence language processing, less is known about the potential influence of prosodic preferences (binary, strong-weak patterns) on neurophysiological processes. To this end, the present electroencephalogram (EEG) study examined whether the predictability of strong and weak syllables within metered speech would differ as a function of meter (trochee vs. iamb). Strong, i.e., accented positions within a foot should be more predictable than weak, i.e., unaccented positions. Our focus was on disyllabic pseudowords that solely differed between trochaic and iambic structure, with trochees providing the preferred foot in German. Methodologically, we focused on the omission Mismatch Negativity (oMMN) that is elicited when an anticipated auditory stimulus is omitted. The resulting electrophysiological brain response is particularly interesting because its elicitation does not depend on a physical stimulus. Omissions in deviant position of a passive oddball paradigm occurred at either first- or second-syllable position of the aforementioned pseudowords, resulting in a 2-by-2 design with the factors foot type and omission position. Analyses focused on the mean oMMN amplitude and latency differences across the four conditions. The result pattern was characterized by an interaction of the effects of foot type and omission position for both amplitudes and latencies. In first position, omissions resulted in larger and earlier oMMNs for trochees than for iambs. In second position, omissions resulted in larger oMMNs for iambs than for trochees, but the oMMN latency did not differ. The results suggest that omissions, particularly in initial position, are modulated by a trochaic preference in German. The preferred strong-weak pattern may have strengthened the prosodic prediction, especially for matching, trochaic stimuli, such that the violation of this prediction led to an earlier and stronger prediction error. Altogether, predictive processing seems to play a particular role in metered speech, especially if the meter is based on the preferred foot type.

Diagnostic Tools for Children with Severe Multiple Developmental Disorders: Eye-tracking and Eelectroencephalogram Approaches

Two pilot studies of children with profound damages of central nervous system were conducted by using eye-tracking. Design of electroencephalographic event related potentials (ERP) study is proposed.We aimed to test different approaches for diagnostic of this clinical group using eye-tracking and electroencephalography.First study was an attempt to adopt classical diagnostic tool with verbal instruction to presentation on tablet with integrated eye-tracker. The result of this study reveals that it is impossible to use standard tools for very impaired children. Furthermore, we proposed several factors that could be crucial for eye-tracking tasks performance.In the second study we tried to avoid tasks that require verbal instruction and voluntary control. Visual search task and Posner cuing task were presented trough tablet with integrated eye-tracker. No reliable records of gaze were obtained in this study.Planning study is developed for using of ERP for diagnostic. We proposed that ERP passive oddball paradigm may allow us to examine psychological state and cognitive process of children.In the end we discussed the conditions and requirements for both approach application in diagnostic children with severe multiple developmental disorders.