Istvan Winkler

..This account of auditory stream segregation has been tested on perceptual data obtained in the auditory streaming paradigm...

..Based on this evidence we then argue that these perceptual object representations are closely related to the generative models assumed by predictive coding theories...

..The pattern of behavioral and ERP results suggest that the formation of such cross-modal memory representation does not require voluntary operations and may even proceed for stimuli outside the focus of attention...

..Accuracy of the predictions can be utilized for selecting the most likely interpretation of the auditory input. Thus in our view, perception generates hypotheses about the causal structure of the world...

..Thus tones forming a spectro-temporal border are exclusively assigned to one sound object at any given time, as are spatio-temporal borders in vision...

..Omitting the downbeat elicits brain activity associated with violating sensory expectations. Thus, our results strongly support the view that beat perception is innate...

..These results suggest that sound organization goes through at least two distinct stages, the first being fully stimulus driven, whereas the second is partly under top-down control...

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..Restoration of the task-optimal attention set was delayed in children, whereas in the elderly, the triggering of involuntary attention-switching required longer time...

..Possible interpretations of P3a and RON are discussed...

..The results also suggest that early P3a and RON index processes related to the specific deviating stimulus feature, whereas late P3a reflects a general distraction-related process...

..On the other hand, the lower MMN amplitudes elicited by frequency deviation in the elderly compared with the younger participants suggest that the specificity of frequency representation deteriorates with aging...

..We investigated whether the auditory system of newborn babies extracts the constancy of a pitch interval from exemplars varying in absolute pitch...

..Our results demonstrate that sounds are organized into auditory streams irrespective of their relevance to ongoing behavior...

..These results support the notion of a temporal integration window in the visual modality, the duration of which is between 150 and 180 ms...

..The discrepancy between the results obtained with and without focal attention suggests that illusory conjunctions may occur during voluntary access to the preattentively encoded object representations...

..Therefore the processes underlying vMMN elicitation cannot fully explain the overt detection of visual deviance...

..However, when the auditory stimulation was task-relevant, the gap-elicited N1 was attenuated. These results show that the glides drew attention away from the ongoing task, both from watching the silent movie and from detecting gaps...

..Thus, similarly to its auditory counterpart, vMMN reflects deviance-(regularity-violation) rather than change-detection processes...

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..This suggests that the auditory system preactivates the neural circuits for expected input, using sequential predictions to specifically prepare for future acoustic events...

..These results suggest that temporal regularities are utilized in auditory scene analysis. It appears that the role of this cue lies in stabilizing streams once they have been formed on the basis of simpler acoustic cues...

..ORN probability dependence is argued to be functionally relevant for the interaction of concurrent and sequential mechanisms of auditory scene analysis...

..The close correspondence found between the effects of auditory context on the perceptual and preattentive measures of auditory grouping suggests that a large part of contextual processing is preattentive...

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..Global repetition probability had a significant effect on RN: it was only elicited with 5%, but not with the two higher repetition-probabilities. This result supports the MMN interpretation of the RN...

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..Also, for the first time, we observed oscillatory gamma-band activity in neonates, which was sensitive to infrequent pitch changes...

..The observed posterior negativity can therefore be regarded as a visual analog of the mismatch negativity (vMMN)...

..We also speculate that activation of less sensitive and fewer D4 receptors (as with the T.7 haplotype) is less effective in modulating GABAergic inhibitory signaling, which in turn is reflected in smaller LN amplitudes...

..Language context had no effect on the mismatch negativity ERP component elicited by the deviant word stimuli. This result suggests that language context does not affect the pre-attentive detection of auditory deviance...

..Its presence in newborn infants shows that the basic abilities required for the development of conceptual objects are available already at the time of birth...

..Thus, sounds closely linked with their auditory context are more likely to be remembered. The representations of acoustic regularities are automatically activated by matching sounds, enabling object recognition...

..Event-related brain potentials demonstrated the survival of an accurate representation of tone pitch in the auditory cortex. This result provides a link between short-duration buffering and permanent storage of acoustic information...

..These results are compatible with an explanation suggesting that MMN is involved in maintaining a neural representation of the auditory environment...