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Magnetoencephalographic recordings demonstrate attentional modulation of mismatch‐related neural activity in human auditory cortex
Author(s) -
Woldorff Marty G.,
Hillyard Steven A.,
Gallen Chris C.,
Hampson Scott R.,
Bloom Floyd E.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1017/s0048577298961601
Subject(s) - mismatch negativity , auditory cortex , psychology , magnetoencephalography , dichotic listening , auditory perception , neuroscience , perception , p3a , audiology , cognitive psychology , electroencephalography , medicine
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.