The representation of unattended, segmented sounds: A mismatch negativity (MMN) study

The detection of an irregular, potentially relevant change (deviance) in the regular, unattended acoustic environment is ensured by the automatic deviance detection mechanism. It underlies the formation of a regularity representation and a comparison of an incoming sound with this representation. A mismatch outcome of this comparison evokes the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the event-related potential. For unattended pure tones the automatic...