The role of attention control in visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) studies.

The detection of unattended visual changes is investigated by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs). The vMMN is measured as the difference between the ERPs to infrequent (deviant) and frequent (standard) stimuli irrelevant to the ongoing task. In the present study, we used human faces expressing different emotions as deviants and standards. In such studies, participants perform various tasks, so their attention is diverted from the vMMN-related stimuli. If such tasks vary in their attentional demand, they might influence the outcome of vMMN studies. In this study, we compared four kinds of frequently used tasks: (1) a tracking task that demanded continuous performance, (2) a detection task where the target stimuli appeared at any time, (3) a detection task where target stimuli appeared only in the inter-stimulus intervals, and (4) a task where target stimuli were members of the stimulus sequence. This fourth task elicited robust vMMN, while in the other three tasks, deviant stimuli elicited moderate posterior negativity (vMMN). We concluded that the ongoing task had a marked influence on vMMN; thus, it is important to consider this effect in vMMN studies.

Emotional expression visual mismatch negativity in children.

Detection of changes in facial emotions is crucial to communicate and to rapidly process threats in the environment. This function develops throughout childhood via modulations of the earliest brain responses, such as the P100 and the N170 recorded using electroencephalography. Automatic brain signatures can be measured through expression-related visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), which reflects the processing of unattended changes. While increasing research has investigated vMMN processing in adults, few studies have been conducted on children. Here, a controlled paradigm previously validated was used to disentangle specific responses to emotional deviants (angry face) from that of neutral deviants. Latencies and amplitudes of P100 and N170 both decrease with age, confirming that sensory and face-specific activity is not yet mature in school-aged children. Automatic change detection-related activity is present in children, with a similar vMMN pattern in response to both emotional and neutral deviant stimuli to what previously observed in adults. However, vMMN processing is delayed in children compared to adults and no emotion-specific response is yet observed, suggesting nonmature automatic detection of salient emotional cues. To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating expression-related vMMN in school-aged children, and further investigations are needed to confirm these results.

Research and Prospect of Visual Event-Related Potential in Traumatic Brain Injury and Visual Function Evaluation.

Visual event-related potential (ERP) is an electrophysiological technique that objectively reflects the cognitive processing of stimulus from the perspective of detecting and recording neural electrophysiology responses using different paradigms of visual stimuli. Its endogenous components are closely related to advanced psychological activities. This article introduces the characteristics of main endogenous components including visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), N200 and P300, reviews the research progress of visual ERP in the sequelae of brain injury and objective evaluation of visual function, and prospects the application prospect of visual ERP in the field of forensic medicine.

Do categorical representations modulate early perceptual or later cognitive visual processing? An ERP study.

Encoding of perceptual categorical information has been observed in later cognitive processing like memory encoding and maintenance, starting around 300 ms after stimulus onset (P300). However, it remains open whether categorical information is also encoded in early perceptual processing steps (reflected in the mismatch negativity component; vMMN). The main goal of this study was to assess the influence of categorical information on both early perceptual (i.e., vMMN component) and later cognitive (i.e., P300 component) processing within one paradigm. Hence, we combined an oddball paradigm with a delayed memory task. We used five-dot patterns belonging to different categories even though categorical information is not mirrored in their physical characteristics. Distinct vMMNs were observed for patterns belonging to the same as compared to different categories, suggesting that abstract categorical information was encoded during early perceptual processing. However, inconsistent with prior studies, we observed no effect of categories on the P300, indicating no additional encoding of categorical information in later cognitive stages of processing. Our findings emphasize that the encoding of categorical information depends on specific task demands and hence is more flexible and dynamic than previously suggested.

Subjectively different emotional schematic faces not automatically discriminated from the brain's bioelectrical responses.

The present study investigates how the brain automatically discriminates emotional schematic faces, as indicated by the mismatch responses, and how reliable these brain responses are. Thirty-three healthy volunteers participated in the vMMN EEG experiment with four experimental sets differing from each other by the type of standard (object with scrambled face features) and the type of deviants (Angry, Happy and Neutral schematic faces) presented. Conscious subjective evaluations of valence, arousal and attention catching of the same stimuli showed clear differentiation of emotional expressions. Deviant faces elicited rather similar vMMN at frontal and occipital sites. Bayesian analyses suggest that vMMN does not differ between angry and happy faces. Neutral faces, however, did not yield statistically significant vMMN at occipital leads. Pearson's correlation and intra-class correlation analyses showed that the brain's reactions to the stimuli were highly stable within individuals across the experimental sets, whereas the mismatch responses were much more variable.

Hunger enhances automatic processing of food and non-food stimuli: A visual mismatch negativity study.

Automatic detection of important and unexpected stimuli in the visual environment is crucial for survival. We sought to explore whether visual food stimuli are detected already in the pre-attentive stimulus processing phase, and whether hunger enhances such automatic detection. To attain these goals, we adapted an electroencephalography paradigm - visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). vMMN is a useful paradigm to study the processing of salient emotional stimuli which has not yet been applied in the context of eating behaviours. In our study, 18 right-handed women (25.2 ±â€¯7.4 years) underwent two experimental sessions: hunger and fed conditions. Participants had to focus on a 2-back working memory task in the center of the computer screen, while stimuli depicting high fat savoury (HFSA) and high fat sweet (HFSW) foods were presented as deviants in a stream of neutral standard stimuli in the four corners of the screen. Automatic detection of foods was observed within 80-360 ms after stimulus onset, although some foods were better detected than the others. In HFSA, hunger enhanced the processing of all deviant stimuli in the early (100-160 ms) and mid-latency (160-220 ms) time windows. As the modulating effect of hunger was not food-specific, hunger may enhance automatic detection of changes in the visual environment, regardless of the type of input. Nevertheless, hamburger in HFSA was better detected than other stimuli, indicated by larger peak amplitudes, which supports the food-specificity of hunger modulation. In HFSW, the modulating effect of hunger was not observed, possibly due to suboptimally chosen stimuli within this block. In conclusion, we believe that after careful stimulus selection vMMN has a great potential to be a reliable measure of early food-cue processing.

Visual mismatch negativity is unaffected by top-down prediction of the timing of deviant events.

Visual mismatch negativity (VMMN) is an event-related brain potential component that is automatically elicited by infrequent (deviant) stimuli that are inserted among frequent (standard) stimuli (i.e., an oddball sequence). Although the elicitation of VMMN is basically determined in a stimulus-driven manner, it can be modulated by top-down control. In a previous study using a "patterned" oddball sequence, where deviant (D) stimuli were regularly inserted among standard (S) stimuli (i.e., repetitions of an SSSSD pattern), VMMN was largely reduced when participants noticed the SSSSD pattern and actively predicted both the identity and timing of the deviant stimuli compared to when they did not notice the SSSSD pattern and did not form such active prediction. The present study further investigated whether or not active prediction of only the timing of deviant stimuli is sufficient for the reduction of VMMN. With the patterned oddball sequence with one deviant (here, deviant stimuli were fixed throughout the block), VMMN was reduced when the participants noticed the SSSSD pattern and actively predicted both the identity and timing of deviant stimuli (i.e., replication of the previous finding). In contrast, with the patterned oddball sequence with two deviants (deviant stimuli were randomly varied between two possibilities), VMMN was not significantly reduced when the participants noticed the SSSSD pattern and actively predicted only the timing of deviant stimuli. These results suggest that active prediction of only the timing of deviant stimuli is not sufficient to reduce VMMN.

Does surprise enhancement or repetition suppression explain visual mismatch negativity?

A long tradition of electrophysiological studies, using oddball sequences, showed that the neural responses to a given stimulus differ when their presentation occurs frequently (standards) as compared to rare, infrequent presentations (deviants). This difference, originally described in acoustic perception, can also be detected in the visual modality and is termed as visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). Also, a large number of studies detected the reduction of the neuronal response after the repetition of a given stimulus (repetition suppression - RS) and it was suggested that RS is the major mechanism of MMN, an explanation currently also supported by animal studies. However, human studies have proposed that a surprise-related response enhancement for the deviant stimuli might also underlie vMMN. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to disentangle which neural mechanism explains vMMN better: the surprise related response enhancement for the presentation of rare deviants or the RS related to the frequent presentation of the standards. Since the MMN depends strongly on the applied categories, we tested the neural mechanisms of vMMN for different stimulus categories (faces, chairs, real and false characters) using a visual oddball paradigm. We found significant vMMN for every stimulus category. Interestingly, the neural mechanisms behind vMMN were found to be category dependent (assuming no cross-adaptation effects): for faces and chairs it was largely driven by RS, whereas for real and false characters it was mainly due to surprise-related changes.

Automatic detection of trustworthiness of the face: a visual mismatch negativity study.

Recognizing intentions of strangers from facial cues is crucial in everyday social interactions. Recent studies demonstrated enhanced event-related potential (ERP) responses to untrustworthy compared to trustworthy faces. The aim of the present study was to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of automatic processing of trustworthiness cues in a visual oddball paradigm in two consecutive experimental blocks. In one block, frequent trustworthy (p = 0.9) and rare untrustworthy face stimuli (p = 0.1) were briefly presented on a computer screen with each stimulus consisting of four peripherally positioned faces. In the other block stimuli were presented with reversed probabilities enabling the comparison of ERPs evoked by physically identical deviant and standard stimuli. To avoid attentional effects participants engaged in a central detection task. Analyses of deviant minus standard difference waveforms revealed that deviant untrustworthy but not trustworthy faces elicited the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component. The present results indicate that adaptation occurred to repeated unattended trustworthy (but not untrustworthy) faces, i.e., an automatic expectation was elicited towards trustworthiness signals, which was violated by deviant untrustworthy faces. As an evolutionary adaptive mechanism, the observed fast detection of trustworthiness-related social facial cues may serve as the basis of conscious recognition of reliable partners.

Prioritization of social information processing: Eye gaze elicits earlier vMMN than arrows.

Numerous research studies have demonstrated that eye gaze and arrows act as cues that automatically guide spatial attention. However, it remains uncertain whether the attention shifts triggered by these two types of stimuli vary in terms of automatic processing mechanisms. In our current investigation, we employed an equal probability paradigm to explore the likenesses and distinctions in the neural mechanisms of automatic processing for eye gaze and arrows in non-attentive conditions, using visual mismatch negative (vMMN) as an indicator of automatic processing. The sample size comprised 17 participants. The results indicated a significant interaction between time duration, stimulus material, and stimulus type. The findings demonstrated that both eye gaze and arrows were processed automatically, triggering an early vMMN, although with temporal variations. The vMMN for eye gaze occurred between 180 and 220 ms, whereas for arrows it ranged from 235 to 275 ms. Moreover, arrow stimuli produced a more pronounced vMMN amplitude. The earlier vMMN response to eye gaze compared with arrows implies the specificity and precedence of social information processing associated with eye gaze over the processing of nonsocial information with arrows. However, arrow could potentially elicit a stronger vMMN because of their heightened salience compared to the background, and the expansion of attention focusing might amplify the vMMN impact. This study offers insights into the similarities and differences in attention processing of social and non-social information under unattended conditions from the perspective of automatic processing.

Theta phase coherence in visual mismatch responses involved in access processing to visual awareness.

Introduction: The electroencephalographic brain response to a deviation from the preceding sequential regularity of visual events, called visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), is well known to reflect automatic visual change detection. Our preliminary study showed a significant correlation between the enhancement of the vMMN amplitude and facilitation of perceptual alternation in binocular rivalry when the deviant stimulus was presented unconsciously. This implies that the vMMN is relevant to access processing, in which the unconscious stimulus is consciously perceived. Recent studies have reported that theta band oscillation evoked by a deviant stimulus is involved in evoking vMMN. However, it has not been clarified whether theta band oscillation associated with vMMN is also relevant to access processing. Methods: We analyzed the correlations between event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) and inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) in the theta band and the proportion of perceptual alternation from before to after the presentation of deviation in the same experimental paradigm as in our previous study. Results: We found that an increase in ITPC in the theta band tended to correlate with facilitation of perceptual alternation in binocular rivalry when the deviant was presented unconsciously, but there was no significant correlation in ERSP. Discussion: The results suggest that theta phase coherence underlying the visual mismatch process is relevant to the access processing.

Configural but Not Featural Face Information Is Associated With Automatic Processing.

Configural face processing precedes featural face processing under the face-attended condition, but their temporal sequence in the absence of attention is unclear. The present study investigated this issue by recording visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), which indicates the automatic processing of visual information under unattended conditions. Participants performed a central cross size change detection task, in which random sequences of faces were presented peripherally, in an oddball paradigm. In Experiment 1, configural and featural faces (deviant stimuli) were presented infrequently among original faces (standard stimuli). In Experiment 2, configural faces were presented infrequently among featural faces, or vice versa. The occipital-temporal vMMN emerged in the 200-360 ms latency range for configural, but not featural, face information. More specifically, configural face information elicited a substantial vMMN component in the 200-360 ms range in Experiment 1. This result was replicated in the 320-360 ms range in Experiment 2, especially in the right hemisphere. These results suggest that configural, but not featural, face information is associated with automatic processing and provides new electrophysiological evidence for the different mechanisms underlying configural and featural face processing under unattended conditions.

Processing Self-Related Information Under Non-attentional Conditions Revealed by Visual MMN.

Mismatch negativity (MMN) of event-related potentials (ERPs) is a biomarker reflecting the preattentional change detection under non-attentional conditions. This study was performed to explore whether high self-related information could elicit MMN in the visual channel, indicating the automatic processing of self-related information at the preattentional stage. Thirty-five participants were recruited and asked to list 25 city names including the birthplace. According to the difference of relevance reported from the participants, we divided names of the different cities into high (birthplace as deviants), medium (Xi'an, where participants' university is located, as deviants), and low (totally unrelated cities as standard stimuli) self-related information. Visual MMN (vMMN) was elicited by high self-related information but not by medium self-related information, with an occipital-temporal scalp distribution, indicating that, under non-attentional condition, high self-related information can be effectively processed automatically in the preattentional stage compared with low self-related information. These data provided new electrophysiological evidence for self-related information processing.

Automatic change detection of multiple facial expressions: A visual mismatch negativity study.

The rapid detection of changes in facial expressions is an important social and survival skill. The detection of multiple facial emotions includes not only the information of emotional valence but also differences in emotional valence, that is, emotional valence consistency and inconsistency. Thus, we explored whether changes in multiple facial expressions could be automatically detected, as indexed by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) response. Participants were presented with a set of facial stimuli while performing a visual facial identity detection task; the stimulus was presented in the center of the visual field. The facial stimuli set consisted of five different facial identities and were presented in an oddball sequence, with four peripherally expressing the same positive or negative emotion and one in the center expressing congruent or incongruent emotions. We found vMMN responses to changes in positive congruent deviant emotions between 210 and 320 ms and in all deviant emotions between 480 and 560 ms over bilateral temporal-occipital sites. In addition, at 480-520 ms, the positive congruent stimulus versus the incongruent stimulus and the negative incongruent stimulus versus the congruent stimulus induced more negative vMMN amplitude in the left temporal-occipital electrodes. This shows that individuals can automatically identify the changes in multiple faces' emotional differences (emotional valence inconsistency), and that the emotional valence of the target face affects the automatic processing of multi-face emotional valence differences information. Furthermore, these results can be utilized in future research investigating automatic processing mechanisms.

The Predictive Role of Low Spatial Frequencies in Automatic Face Processing: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Investigation.

Visual processing is thought to function in a coarse-to-fine manner. Low spatial frequencies (LSF), conveying coarse information, would be processed early to generate predictions. These LSF-based predictions would facilitate the further integration of high spatial frequencies (HSF), conveying fine details. The predictive role of LSF might be crucial in automatic face processing, where high performance could be explained by an accurate selection of clues in early processing. In the present study, we used a visual Mismatch Negativity (vMMN) paradigm by presenting an unfiltered face as standard stimulus, and the same face filtered in LSF or HSF as deviant, to investigate the predictive role of LSF vs. HSF during automatic face processing. If LSF are critical for predictions, we hypothesize that LSF deviants would elicit less prediction error (i.e., reduced mismatch responses) than HSF deviants. Results show that both LSF and HSF deviants elicited a mismatch response compared with their equivalent in an equiprobable sequence. However, in line with our hypothesis, LSF deviants evoke significantly reduced mismatch responses compared to HSF deviants, particularly at later stages. The difference in mismatch between HSF and LSF conditions involves posterior areas and right fusiform gyrus. Overall, our findings suggest a predictive role of LSF during automatic face processing and a critical involvement of HSF in the fusiform during the conscious detection of changes in faces.

Automatic change detection: Mismatch negativity and the now-classic Rensink, O'Reagan, and Clark (1997) stimuli.

Change blindness experiments had demonstrated that detection of significant changes in natural images is extremely difficult when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene. On the other hand, research on the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs) identified sensitivity to events (deviants) different from the regularity of stimulus sequences (standards), even if the deviant and standard events are non-attended. The present study sought to investigate the apparent controversy between the experience under the change blindness paradigm and the ERP results. To this end, the stimulus of Rensink, O'Reagen, and Clark (1997) was adapted to a passive oddball ERP paradigm to investigate the underlying processing differences between the standard (original) and deviant (altered) stimuli measured in 22 subjects. Posterior negativity within the 280-330 ms latency range emerged as the difference between ERPs elicited by standard and deviant stimuli, identified as visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). These results raise the possibility that change blindness is not based on the lack of detailed visual representations or the deficiency of comparing two representations. However, effective discrimination of the two scene versions requires considerable frequency differences between them.

The automatic detection of unexpected emotion and neutral body postures: A visual mismatch negativity study.

The ability to automatically detect emotional changes in the environment is crucial for social interaction. In the visual system, expression-related mismatch negativity (EMMN) reflects the automatic processing of emotional changes in facial expression. However, body postures also carry visual emotional information that can be recognized effectively and processed automatically, although their processing mechanism remains unknown. In this study, the reverse oddball paradigm was used to investigate the mismatch responses of unexpected fear and neutral body postures. The nonparametric cluster permutation test revealed significant fear and neutral visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) activities, and the fear-related vMMN was enhanced prior (130-230 ms) to the neutral vMMN (180-230 ms). The body-sensitive N190 component may partially account for the vMMN obtained in this study. The fearful body posture evoked a greater N190 response over the neutral body, and amplitudes of N190 were more negative in the deviant condition than the standard condition. Additionally, the body-related visual mismatch oscillatory responses were associated with enhancement of the alpha band oscillation, especially for the fearful body posture. These results expanded the applicable scope of body posture cues corresponding to mismatch signals, objectively defined the electrophysiological activities evoked, and revealed the processing bias toward negative emotion.

A combined stimuli presentation for assessing facial emotion related N170, N250 and visual mismatch negativity in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Event-related potential (ERP) is a useful approach to assess the neurophysiological correlates of facial emotion processing. Previous studies examined the facial emotion recognition (FER) related ERPs (N170, N250, visual MisMatch Negativity) individually using ERP specific paradigms. This approach can be time-consuming and may not resemble real-life scenarios where an individual must process multiple stimuli simultaneously. The aim of the study was to assess the utility of a combined paradigm when compared to individual paradigms to measure N170, N250 and visual MisMatch Negativity (vMMN) in healthy controls (HC), utilizing emotion stimuli standardized in the Indian population. Further, the combined paradigm was examined in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) to detect the differences in ERPs compared to HC. Within paradigms, ERPs showed higher amplitudes for emotion compared to neutral stimuli suggesting that the paradigms were able to detect valence associated with emotional stimuli. The combined paradigm was able to elicit decipherable peaks of N170, N250 and vMMN similar to individual paradigms. ERP data quality as assessed by analytic Standardized Measurement Error (aSME) showed a satisfactory aggregate score of above 2 for all the three paradigms. Combined paradigm approaches to record ERPs in neuropsychiatric conditions has the advantage of reducing the time required for task administration, avoiding practice effects, better subject cooperation and participation.

Older Adults Automatically Detect Age of Older Adults' Photographs: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Study.

The human face is one of the most frequently used stimuli in vMMN (visual mismatch negativity) research. Previous studies showed that vMMN is sensitive to facial emotions and gender, but investigations of age-related vMMN differences are relatively rare. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the models' age in photographs were automatically detected, even if the photographs were not parts of the ongoing task. Furthermore, we investigated age-related differences, and the possibility of different sensitivity to photographs of participants' own versus different ages. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to faces of young and old models in younger (N = 20; 18-30 years) and older groups (N = 20; 60-75 years). The faces appeared around the location of the field of a tracking task. In sequences the young or the old faces were either frequent (standards) or infrequent (deviants). According to the results, a regular sequence of models' age is automatically registered, and faces violating the models' age elicited the vMMN component. However, in this study vMMN emerged only in the older group to same-age deviants. This finding is explained by the less effective inhibition of irrelevant stimuli in the elderly, and corresponds to own-age bias effect of recognition studies.

Visual Mismatch Negativity: A Mini-Review of Non-pathological Studies With Special Populations and Stimuli.

In this mini-review, we summarized the results of 12 visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) studies that attempted to use this component as a tool for investigating differences between non-clinical samples of participants as well as the possibility of automatic discrimination in the case of specific categories of visual stimuli. These studies investigated the effects of gender, the effects of long-term differences between the groups of participants (fitness, experience in different sports, and Internet addiction), and the effects of short-term states (mental fatigue and hypoxia), as well as the vMMN effect elicited by artworks as a special stimulus category.