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Visual Mismatch Negativity and Categorization

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Abstract

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials is elicited by stimuli violating the category rule of stimulus sequences, even if such stimuli are outside the focus of attention. Category-related vMMN emerges to colors, and color-related vMMN is sensitive to language-related effects. A higher-order perceptual category, bilateral symmetry is also represented in the memory processes underlying vMMN. As a relatively large body of research shows, violating the emotional category of human faces elicits vMMN. Another face-related category sensitive to the violation of regular presentation is gender. Finally, vMMN was elicited to the laterality of hands. As results on category-related vMMN show, stimulus representation in the non-conscious change detection system is fairly complex, and it is not restricted to the registration of elementary perceptual regularities.

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Notes

  1. In the oddball sequences the interval between two standards is shorter than the interval between two deviants. As a function of inter-stimulus interval the amplitude of some ERP components increase. Therefore standard stimuli may elicit smaller negative components than the deviant, i.e., deviant minus standard difference potential would be negative. The relationship between the mismatch components and the refractoriness of ERP components (particularly N1 refractoriness) is discussed in detail in the auditory modality (May and Tiitinen 2010; Näätänen et al. 2005), and in some visual studies (e.g. Kenemans et al. 2003; Kimura et al. 2009). The refractoriness issue is a central topic of vMMN research, but it is outside the scope of the present review.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Hungarian Research Found (OTKA) 104462. I thank István Sulykos and Krisztina Kecskés-Kovács for the fruitful discussions.

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  1. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O.Box 398, Budapest, 1394, Hungary

    István Czigler

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Correspondence to István Czigler.

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This is one of several papers published together in Brain Topography in the ‘‘Special Issue: Mismatch Negativity”.

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Czigler, I. Visual Mismatch Negativity and Categorization. Brain Topogr 27, 590–598 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-013-0316-8

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