Mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited by abstract regularity violations in two concurrent auditory streams

The study investigated whether violations of abstract regularities in two parallel auditory stimulus streams can elicit the MMN (mismatch negativity) event-related potential. Tone pairs from a low (220–392 Hz) and a high (1319–2349 Hz) stream were delivered in an alternating order either at a fast or a slow pace. With the slow pace, the pairs were perceptually heard as a single stream obeying an alternating low pair-high pair pattern, whereas with the fast pace, an experience of two separate auditory streams, low and high, emerged. Both streams contained standard and deviant pairs. The standard pairs were either in both streams ascending in the direction of the within-pair pitch change or in the one stream ascending and in the other stream descending. The direction of the deviant pairs was opposite to that of the same-stream standard pairs. The participant's task was either to ignore the auditory stimuli or to detect the deviant pairs in the designated stream. The deviant pairs elicited an MMN both when the directions of the standard pairs in the two streams were the same or when they were opposite. The MMN was present irrespective of the pace of stimulation. The results indicate that the preattentive brain mechanisms, reflected by the MMN, can extract abstract regularities from two concurrent streams even when the regularities are opposite in the two streams, and independently of whether there perceptually exists only one stimulus stream or two segregated streams. These results demonstrate the brain's remarkable ability to model various regularities embedded in the auditory environment and update the models when the regularities are violated. The observed phenomena can be related to several aspects of auditory information processing, e.g., music and speech perception and different forms of attention.