Sequential grouping of tone sequence as reflected by the mismatch negativity | Biological Cybernetics
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Sequential grouping of tone sequence as reflected by the mismatch negativity

  • Published:
Biological Cybernetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

The human sequential grouping that organizes parts of tones into a group was examined by the mismatch negativity (MMN), a component of event-related potentials that reveals the sensory memory process. The sequential grouping is accomplished by the combinations of some factors, e.g., temporal and frequency proximity principles. In this study, auditory oddball stimuli in which each of the stimuli consisted of series of tone bursts, were applied to the subjects, and the MMN elicited by the deviation of the frequency of the last tone in the stimulus was investigated. The relationship between the expected phenomena of sequential grouping of tones and observed magnitudes of MMN was evaluated. It was shown that the magnitudes of MMN changed according to the configuration (number of tones, frequency) of tone sequence to be stored. This result suggested that the sequential grouping of presented tones was achieved on the preattentive auditory sensory memory process. It was also shown that the relative change of MMN magnitudes corresponded to the conditions of sequential grouping, which had been proposed by the auditory psychophysical studies. The investigation of MMN properties could reveal the nature of auditory sequential grouping.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
¥17,985 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Japan)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Alho K (1995) Cerebral generators of mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic counterpart (MMNm) elicited by sound change. Ear Hear 16:38–51

    Google Scholar 

  2. Baumann U (2000) Identification and segmentation of multiple auditory objects. In: Auditory worlds: sensory analysis and perception in animals and man. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, pp 274–278

  3. Bregman AS (1990) Auditory scene analysis. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

  4. Darwin CJ (1997) Auditory grouping. Trends Cogn Sci 1(9):327–333

    Google Scholar 

  5. Kanoh S, Itoh T, Kazami K, Futami R, Hoshimiya N (1996) A study on mismatch response to a change in tone duration by EEG and MEG. Jpn J Med Electron Biol Eng 34(4):128–136

    Google Scholar 

  6. Kanoh S, Arai T, Futami R, Hoshimiya N (2001) Properties of auditory temporal integration revealed by mismatch negativity. In: Proceedings of the 23rd annual IEEE EMBS international conference, 2.7.3.4

  7. Näätänen R (1992) Attention and brain function. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ

  8. Näätänen R, Tervaniemi M, Sussman E, Paavilainen P, Winkler I (2001) ‘Primitive intelligence’ in the auditory cortex. Trends Neurosci 24(5):283–288

    Google Scholar 

  9. Schröger E, Paavilainen P, Näätänen R (1994) Mismatch negativity to changes in a continuous tone with regularly varying frequencies. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 92:140–147

    Google Scholar 

  10. Schröger E, Tervaniemi M, Wolff C, Näätänen R (1996) Preattentive periodicity detection in auditory patterns as governed by time and intensity information. Cogn Brain Res 4:145–148

    Google Scholar 

  11. Shinozaki N, Yabe H, Sato Y, Sutoh T, Hiruma T, Nashida T, Kaneko S (2000) Mismatch negativity (MMN) reveals sound grouping in the human brain. Neuroreport 11:1597–1601

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sussman E, Ritter W, Vaughan HG Jr (1998) Predictability of stimulus deviance and the mismatch negativity. Neuroreport 9:4167–4170

    Google Scholar 

  13. Sussman E, Ritter W, Vaughan GH Jr (1999) An investigation of the auditory streaming effect using event-related brain potentials. Psychophysiology 36:22–34

    Google Scholar 

  14. Tervaniemi M, Saarinen J, Paavilainen P, Danilova N, Näätänen R (1994) Temporal integration of auditory information in sensory memory as reflected by the mismatch negativity. Biol Psychol 38:157–167

    Google Scholar 

  15. Tiitinen H, May P, Reinikainen K, Näätänen R (1994) Attentive novelty detection in humans is governed by pre-attentive sensory memory. Nature 372:90–92

    Google Scholar 

  16. Winkler I, Schröger E (1995) Neural representation for the temporal structure of sound patterns. Neuroreport 6:690–694

    Google Scholar 

  17. Winkler I, Czigler I, Jaramillo M, Paavilainen P, Näätänen R (1998) Temporal constraints of auditory event synthesis: evidence from ERP. Neuroreport 9:495–499

    Google Scholar 

  18. Winkler I, Schröger E, Cowan N (2001) The role of large-scale memory organization in the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential. J Cogn Neurosci 13(1):59–71

    Google Scholar 

  19. Yabe H, Tervaniemi M, Reinikainen K, Näätänen R (1997) Temporal window of integration revealed by MMN to sound omission. Neuroreport 8:1971–1974

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aoba-yama 6–6–05, Sendai, 980–8579, Japan

    Shin’ichiro Kanoh, Ryoko Futami & Nozomu Hoshimiya

Authors
  1. Shin’ichiro Kanoh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ryoko Futami
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nozomu Hoshimiya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shin’ichiro Kanoh.

Additional information

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee on Clinical Investigation, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University and was carried out in accordance with the policy of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kanoh, S., Futami, R. & Hoshimiya, N. Sequential grouping of tone sequence as reflected by the mismatch negativity. Biol. Cybern. 91, 388–395 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-004-0521-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-004-0521-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation