Further characterization of "subject's own name (SON) negativity," an ERP component reflecting early preattentive detection of SON

Abstract

Background: Subject's own name (SON) is detected automatically and unconsciously in the brain. SON negativity, an early wave in the mismatch negativity latency range, has been proposed as a potential event-related potential (ERP) index of the automatic preattentive detection of SON. SON negativity is probably not a general measure of familiarity, as it is not elicited by the subject's parent's name. We further investigated the specificity of this response by testing whether it is elicited by a name to which subjects were strongly but only temporarily familiarized.

Findings: Subjects performed a task to detect an arbitrary unfamiliar name for forty minutes. Then, that name was presented randomly and equiprobably with nine novel unfamiliar names while they played a video game and tried to ignore the sounds. SON negativity was not elicited, even when subjects spontaneously noticed hearing the familiarized name.

Conclusions: The finding supports the notion that SON negativity represents a specific ERP measure of the early preattentive detection of SON, rather than a general measure of familiarity.

Figure 1

ERP to name stimuli. Traces show the ERPs to a temporarily familiarized TARGET name (thin lines) and unfamiliar NON-TARGET names (thick lines) in subjects who spontaneously noticed hearing the TARGET during playing video game (NOTICED), and in those who did not (UNNOTICED). The neural responses to TARGET and NON-TARGET were not distinguishable in the latency range of SON negativity (about 150–300 ms, shaded region) in either subject group. In the NOTICED group, TARGET elicited a late negativity (LN, 300- ms) over frontal and frontal polar regions.