Visual Perceptual Load Does Not Affect the Frequency Mismatch Negativity

Abstract

The mismatch negativity (MMN) has been of particular interest in auditory perception because of its sensitivity to auditory change. It is typically measured in an oddball task and is computed as the difference of deviant minus standard tones. Previous studies suggest that the oddball MMN can be reduced by crossmodal attention to a concurrent, difficult visual task. However, more recent studies did not replicate this effect. Because previous findings seem to be biased, we preregistered the present study and used Bayesian hypothesis testing to measure the strength of evidence for or against an effect of visual task difficulty. We manipulated visual perceptual load (high and low load). In the task, the visual stimuli were identical for both loads to avoid confounding effects from physical differences of the visual stimuli. We also measured the corrected MMN because the oddball MMN may be confounded by physical differences between deviant and standard tones. The corrected MMN is obtained with a separate control condition in which the same tone as the deviant (critical tone) is equiprobable with other tones. The corrected MMN is computed as deviant minus critical tones. Furthermore, we assessed working memory capacity to examine its moderating role. In our large sample (N = 49), the evidential strength in support of no effect of visual load was moderate for the oddball MMN (9.09 > BF01 > 3.57) and anecdotal to moderate for the corrected MMN (4.55 > BF01 > 2.17). Also, working memory capacity did not correlate with the visual load effect on the oddball MMN and the corrected MMN. The present findings support the robustness of the auditory frequency MMN to manipulations of crossmodal, visual attention and suggest that this relationship is not moderated by working memory capacity.

Keywords: N1; crossmodal attention; mismatch negativity; oddball; perceptual load; working memory capacity.

FIGURE 1

Grand average (N = 49) ERPs to the onset of different tones for three electrodes (in different rows), separately for low visual load (left column) and high visual load (right colum). The deviant and standard were from the oddball condition, the critical tone was identical to the deviant but from the control condition, and the control tone refers to all tones in the control condition. The gray bars mark the relevant electrodes and intervals for the N1, MMN, and P3a. The data were low-pass filtered at 30 Hz.

FIGURE 2

Grand average (N = 49) ERPs to tone onset for the oddball MMN (top) and corrected MMN (bottom) during low and high visual load (across Fz and Cz). The oddball MMN was the difference between deviant and standard in the oddball condition (deviant minus standard), and the corrected MMN was the difference between deviant in the oddball and the critical tone in the control condition. The gray bars mark the relevant intervals for the MMN. The data were low-pass filtered at 30 Hz.

FIGURE 3

Grand average (N = 49) ERPs to onset of the visual targets and non-targets in the oddball condition (left column) and the control condition (right column) during low visual load (top row) and high visual load (bottom row) across Cz and Pz. The gray bars mark the relevant intervals for the visual P3. The data were low-pass filtered at 30 Hz.