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Herman D, Baker S, Chow R, Cazes J, Alain C, Rosenbaum RS. Mismatch negativity as a marker of auditory pattern separation. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:10181-10193. [PMID: 37522256 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad274] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2023] [Revised: 07/02/2023] [Accepted: 07/04/2023] [Indexed: 08/01/2023] Open
Abstract
To what extent does incidental encoding of auditory stimuli influence subsequent episodic memory for the same stimuli? We examined whether the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential generated by auditory change detection, is correlated with participants' ability to discriminate those stimuli (i.e. targets) from highly similar lures and from dissimilar foils. We measured the MMN in 30 young adults (18-32 years, 18 females) using a passive auditory oddball task with standard and deviant 5-tone sequences differing in pitch contour. After exposure, all participants completed an incidental memory test for old targets, lures, and foils. As expected, participants at test exhibited high sensitivity in recognizing target items relative to foils and lower sensitivity in recognizing target items relative to lures. Notably, we found a significant correlation between MMN amplitude and lure discrimination, but not foil discrimination. Our investigation shows that our capacity to discriminate sensory inputs at encoding, as measured by the MMN, translates into precision in memory for those inputs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deena Herman
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada
| | - Stevenson Baker
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada
| | - Ricky Chow
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada
| | - Jaime Cazes
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
| | - Claude Alain
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada
- Department of Psychology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, 1 King's College Circle, Medical Sciences Building, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - R Shayna Rosenbaum
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1, Canada
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Hilger K, Euler MJ. Intelligence and Visual Mismatch Negativity: Is Pre-Attentive Visual Discrimination Related to General Cognitive Ability? J Cogn Neurosci 2022; 35:1-17. [PMID: 36473095 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01946] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
EEG has been used for decades to identify neurocognitive processes related to intelligence. Evidence is accumulating for associations with neural markers of higher-order cognitive processes (e.g., working memory); however, whether associations are specific to complex processes or also relate to earlier processing stages remains unclear. Addressing these issues has implications for improving our understanding of intelligence and its neural correlates. The MMN is an ERP that is elicited when, within a series of frequent standard stimuli, rare deviant stimuli are presented. As stimuli are typically presented outside the focus of attention, the MMN is suggested to capture automatic pre-attentive discrimination processes. However, the MMN and its relation to intelligence has largely only been studied in the auditory domain, thus preventing conclusions about the involvement of automatic discrimination processes in humans' dominant sensory modality-vision. EEG was recorded from 50 healthy participants during a passive visual oddball task that presented simple sequence violations and deviations within a more complex hidden pattern. Signed area amplitudes and fractional area latencies of the visual MMN were calculated with and without Laplacian transformation. Correlations between visual MMN and intelligence (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices) were of negligible to small effect sizes, differed critically between measurement approaches, and Bayes Factors provided anecdotal to substantial evidence for the absence of an association. We discuss differences between the auditory and visual MMN, the implications of different measurement approaches, and offer recommendations for further research in this evolving field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kirsten Hilger
- Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg, Germany
- Goethe University, Frankfurt Germany
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McKinney TL, Euler MJ. Neural anticipatory mechanisms predict faster reaction times and higher fluid intelligence. Psychophysiology 2019; 56:e13426. [PMID: 31241187 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13426] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2018] [Revised: 04/11/2019] [Accepted: 05/11/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Higher cognitive ability is reliably linked to better performance on chronometric tasks (i.e., faster reaction times, RT), yet the neural basis of these effects remains unclear. Anticipatory processes represent compelling yet understudied potential mechanisms of these effects, which may facilitate performance through reducing the uncertainty surrounding the temporal onset of stimuli (temporal uncertainty) and/or facilitating motor readiness despite uncertainty about impending target locations (target uncertainty). Specifically, the contingent negative variation (CNV) represents a compelling candidate mechanism of anticipatory motor planning, while the alpha oscillation is thought to be sensitive to temporal contingencies in perceptual systems. The current study undertook a secondary analysis of a large data set (n = 91) containing choice RT, cognitive ability, and EEG measurements to help clarify these issues. Single-trial EEG analysis in conjunction with mixed-effects modeling revealed that higher fluid intelligence corresponded to faster RT on average. When considered together, temporal and target uncertainty moderated the RT-ability relationship, with higher ability being associated with greater resilience to both types of uncertainty. Target uncertainty attenuated the amplitude of the CNV for all participants, but higher ability individuals were more resilient to this effect. Similarly, only higher ability individuals showed increased prestimulus alpha power (at left-lateralized sites) during longer, more easily anticipated interstimulus intervals. Collectively, these findings emphasize top-down anticipatory processes as likely contributors to chronometry-ability correlations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ty L McKinney
- Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
| | - Matthew J Euler
- Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
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