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Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity

One of the most challenging tasks of our visual systems is to structure and integrate the enormous amount of incoming information into distinct coherent objects. It is an ongoing debate whether or not the formation of visual objects requires attention. Implicit behavioral measures suggest that objec...

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Autores principales: Müller, Dagmar, Widmann, Andreas, Schröger, Erich
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23772212
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00259
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author Müller, Dagmar
Widmann, Andreas
Schröger, Erich
author_facet Müller, Dagmar
Widmann, Andreas
Schröger, Erich
author_sort Müller, Dagmar
collection PubMed
description One of the most challenging tasks of our visual systems is to structure and integrate the enormous amount of incoming information into distinct coherent objects. It is an ongoing debate whether or not the formation of visual objects requires attention. Implicit behavioral measures suggest that object formation can occur for task-irrelevant and unattended visual stimuli. The present study investigated pre-attentive visual object formation by combining implicit behavioral measures and an electrophysiological indicator of pre-attentive visual irregularity detection, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) of the event-related potential. Our displays consisted of two symmetrically arranged, task-irrelevant ellipses, the objects. In addition, there were two discs of either high or low luminance presented on the objects, which served as targets. Participants had to indicate whether the targets were of the same or different luminance. In separate conditions, the targets either usually were enclosed in the same object or in two different objects (standards). Occasionally, the regular target-to-object assignment was changed (deviants). That is, standards and deviants were exclusively defined on the basis of the task-irrelevant target-to-object assignment but not on the basis of some feature regularity. Although participants did not notice the regularity nor the occurrence of the deviation in the sequences, task-irrelevant deviations resulted in increased reaction times. Moreover, compared with physically identical standard displays deviating target-to-object assignments elicited a negative potential in the 246–280 ms time window over posterio-temporal electrode positions which was identified as vMMN. With variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) object-related vMMN was localized to the inferior temporal gyrus. Our results support the notion that the visual system automatically structures even task-irrelevant aspects of the incoming information into objects.
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spelling pubmed-36771252013-06-14 Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity Müller, Dagmar Widmann, Andreas Schröger, Erich Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience One of the most challenging tasks of our visual systems is to structure and integrate the enormous amount of incoming information into distinct coherent objects. It is an ongoing debate whether or not the formation of visual objects requires attention. Implicit behavioral measures suggest that object formation can occur for task-irrelevant and unattended visual stimuli. The present study investigated pre-attentive visual object formation by combining implicit behavioral measures and an electrophysiological indicator of pre-attentive visual irregularity detection, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) of the event-related potential. Our displays consisted of two symmetrically arranged, task-irrelevant ellipses, the objects. In addition, there were two discs of either high or low luminance presented on the objects, which served as targets. Participants had to indicate whether the targets were of the same or different luminance. In separate conditions, the targets either usually were enclosed in the same object or in two different objects (standards). Occasionally, the regular target-to-object assignment was changed (deviants). That is, standards and deviants were exclusively defined on the basis of the task-irrelevant target-to-object assignment but not on the basis of some feature regularity. Although participants did not notice the regularity nor the occurrence of the deviation in the sequences, task-irrelevant deviations resulted in increased reaction times. Moreover, compared with physically identical standard displays deviating target-to-object assignments elicited a negative potential in the 246–280 ms time window over posterio-temporal electrode positions which was identified as vMMN. With variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) object-related vMMN was localized to the inferior temporal gyrus. Our results support the notion that the visual system automatically structures even task-irrelevant aspects of the incoming information into objects. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3677125/ /pubmed/23772212 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00259 Text en Copyright © 2013 Müller, Widmann and Schröger. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Müller, Dagmar
Widmann, Andreas
Schröger, Erich
Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title_full Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title_fullStr Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title_full_unstemmed Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title_short Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
title_sort object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677125/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23772212
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00259
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