Making Sense of Mismatch Negativity

Abstract

Evoked potentials provide valuable insight into brain processes that are integral to our ability to interact effectively and efficiently in the world. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the evoked potential has proven highly informative on the ways in which sensitivity to regularity contributes to perception and cognition. This review offers a compendium of research on MMN with a view to scaffolding an appreciation for its use as a tool to explore the way regularities contribute to predictions about the sensory environment over many timescales. In compiling this work, interest in MMN as an index of sensory encoding and memory are addressed, as well as attention. Perspectives on the possible underlying computational processes are reviewed as well as recent observations that invite consideration of how MMN relates to how we learn, what we learn, and why.

Keywords: MMN; auditory; mismatch negativity; predictive coding; stimulus specific adaptation.

Figure 1

Representation of original multiple-timescale sequence. Depiction of sound sequence design in the multiple-timescale paradigm used by (8). Dark blocks represent “first context” blocks where one tone is presented with standard probability (p = .825) and the other tone with deviant probability (p = .125). Light blocks represent “second context” blocks where these tone probabilities are reversed (i.e., the originally standard tone becomes the deviant and the originally deviant tone becomes the standard). Sound sequences were created using these block types with different lengths, forming a “slow change” sequence consisting of 2.4-min blocks, and a “fast change” sequence consisting of 0.8-min blocks.

Figure 2

Data from published multi-timescale studies. Detailed descriptions of the studies are provided in text. (A) Mean MMN amplitudes obtained from studies using a long block sequence before short block sequence. Black dots and white diamonds represent mean MMN amplitudes obtained in (15) where participants heard the sequences first with the long tone as the deviant in the first context and then the short tone as the deviant in the first context. The red squares represent mean MMN amplitudes obtained in (207) when the long tone was the deviant in the first context, but participants were first informed about the structure and the composition of the sequences before hearing them. (B) Mean MMN amplitudes obtained in (208) where the long tone was the deviant in the first context. Data show amplitudes obtained from the whole sequence (black dots), the first and second encounter with a given long block context (white diamonds), and the early and later half of the long blocks (red squares).