Visual mismatch negativity to disappearing parts of objects and textures

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 14; no. 2; p. e0209130
• Main Authors: Czigler, István, Sulykos, István, File, Domonkos, Kojouharova, Petia, Gaál, Zsófia Anna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 07-02-2019; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Acclimatization - physiology; Adaptation, Physiological - physiology; Adult; Analysis; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain - physiology; Brain research; Coding theory; Computer and Information Sciences; Diamonds; Electroencephalography - methods; Employee orientation; Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology; Female; Humans; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mismatch negativity; Neurosciences; Object Attachment; Object recognition; Occlusion; Orientation; Orientation - physiology; Orientation behavior; Orientation, Spatial - physiology; Physical Sciences; Probability; Research and Analysis Methods; Social Sciences; Texture; Texture (Materials); Visual Perception - physiology; Visual stimuli; Young Adult; Hungary
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209130

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), an event-related signature of automatic detection of events violating sequential regularities is traditionally investigated at the onset of frequent (standard) and rare (deviant) events. In a previous study we obtained vMMN to vanishing parts of continuously presented objects (diamonds with diagonals), and we concluded that the offset-related vMMN is a model of sensitivity to irregular partial occlusion of objects. In the present study we replicated the previous results, but in order to test the object-related interpretation we applied a new condition with a set of separate visual stimuli: a texture of bars with two orientations. In the texture condition (offset of bars with irregular vs. regular orientation) we obtained vMMN, showing that the continuous presence of objects is unnecessary for offset-related vMMN. However, unlike in the object-related condition, reappearance of the previously vanishing lines also elicited vMMN. In principle reappearance of the stimuli is an event with probability 1.0, and according to our results, the object condition reappearance was an expected event. However, the offset and onset of texture elements seems to be treated separately by the system underlying vMMN. As an advantage of the present method, the whole stimulus set during the inter-stimulus interval saturates the visual structures sensitive to stimulus input. Accordingly, the offset-related vMMN is less sensitive to low-level adaptation that differs between the deviant and standard stimuli.