
Magnetoencephalographic recordings demonstrate attentional modulation of mismatch-related neural activity in human auditory cortex.
It is widely agreed that the negative brain potential elicited at 150-200 ms by a deviant, less intense sound in a repetitive series can be modulated by attention. To investigate whether this modulation represents a genuine attention effect on the mismatch negativity (MMN) arising from auditory cortex or attention-related activity from another brain region, we recorded both the MMN and the mismatch magnetic field (MMF) elicited by such deviants in a dichotic listening task. Deviant tones in the attended ear elicited a sizable MMF that was well modeled as a dipolar source in auditory cortex. Both the MMN and MMF to unattended-ear deviants were highly attenuated. These findings support the view that the MMN/MMF elicited in auditory cortex by intensity deviants, and thus the underlying feature-analysis and mismatch-detection processes, are not strongly automatic but rather can be gated or suppressed if attention is strongly focused elsewhere.
Duke Scholars
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Related Subject Headings
- Magnetoencephalography
- Humans
- Experimental Psychology
- Evoked Potentials, Auditory
- Dichotic Listening Tests
- Auditory Cortex
- Attention
- Adult
- Acoustic Stimulation
- 52 Psychology
Citation

Published In
DOI
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Location
Related Subject Headings
- Magnetoencephalography
- Humans
- Experimental Psychology
- Evoked Potentials, Auditory
- Dichotic Listening Tests
- Auditory Cortex
- Attention
- Adult
- Acoustic Stimulation
- 52 Psychology