Salisbury DF. Finding the missing stimulus mismatch negativity (MMN): emitted

MMN to violations of an auditory gestalt. Psychophysiology. 2012 Apr;49(4):544-8

Thank you John I will read the paper

Yes, there is great amount of the MMN research, not only in auditory but also in visual domain: for review see Winkler, István, and István Czigler. 2011 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22047947). This research assume an automatic perceptual prediction - e.g. it does not require attention and a task. There is also evidence for processing of the missing stimulus in late cognitive potentials, e.g. Tarkka, I MStokic, D S. 1988 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9880172). For such response it is necessary build a temporal context - e.g. a predictable regularity (in some sense also the N400 is reaction to missing congruence).

The question is, however, oriented to unnoticed omissions. There are likely many reasons for such behaviour as blinks, saccades, or an increase of the alpha activity with fatigue, which then suppress the perception. These papers are also numerous (google for alpha activity sensory suppression).

It would be interesting to see if there is the MMN when a predictable target is missed.

Hi Francesco, I attach an interesting paper (MEG though) suggesting a relationship between target detection and brain ongoing activity.

Might be relevant.

Ciao

M

Thanks a lot for the answer. I really like the view of the N400 as reaction to missing congruence (or regularity).

However, I was not clear in my question.

I'd like to know if you know literature on "response omission" for target requiring a response from the subject.

Usually in any cognitive task (oddball, go/no-go or SART) subjects may commit some missing errors (i.e. they do not respond to some targets).

I'm wondering why we commit omission error?

The response omission is a problem at preparatory, sensory or decision level?

Thank you for your time...

Grazie Marcello, very interesting paper.

This is being sent by her husband Professor Roger Broughton. You should contact our colleague and friend Ken Campbell of the University of Ottawa who has done this. [email protected]. (double check his email address in his many publications on ERPs.

I suggest Jongsma et al, Psychophysiology 2005, 191-201, which contains an extensive set of references on the topic (also the 1967 seminal study of Sutton and coll).  The literature on this issue (ERPs from omitted stimuli: emitted ERPs) is relevant.