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N2ac: An ERP component associated with the focusing of attention within an auditory scene
Author(s) -
Gamble Marissa L.,
Luck Steven J.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01172.x
Subject(s) - psychology , selective auditory attention , selective attention , cognitive psychology , focus (optics) , n2pc , component (thermodynamics) , mismatch negativity , negativity effect , audiology , cognition , electroencephalography , visual attention , neuroscience , medicine , physics , optics , thermodynamics
Humans must often focus attention onto relevant sensory signals in the presence of simultaneous irrelevant signals. This type of attention has been explored in vision with the N2pc component, and the present study sought to find an analogous auditory effect. In Experiment 1, two 750‐ms sounds were presented simultaneously, one from each of two lateral speakers. On each trial, participants indicated whether one of the two sounds was a pre‐defined target. We found that targets elicited an N2ac component: a negativity in the N2 latency range at anterior contralateral electrodes. We also observed a later and more posterior contralateral positivity. Experiment 2 replicated these effects and demonstrated that they arose from competition between attended and unattended tones rather than reflecting lateralized effects of attention for individual tones. The N2ac component may provide a useful tool for studying selective attention within auditory scenes.