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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Main Authors:	Müller, Dagmar, Widmann, Andreas, Schröger, Erich
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677125/

id	pubmed-3677125
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-36771252013-06-14 Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity Müller, Dagmar Widmann, Andreas Schröger, Erich 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.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Müller, Dagmar Widmann, Andreas Schröger, Erich
spellingShingle	Müller, Dagmar Widmann, Andreas Schröger, Erich Object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
author_facet	Müller, Dagmar Widmann, Andreas Schröger, Erich
author_sort	Müller, Dagmar
title	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_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_sort	object-related regularities are processed automatically: evidence from the visual mismatch negativity
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.
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677125/
_version_	1611984897370488832

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

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