Evidence that the mismatch negativity to pattern violations does not vary with deviant probability
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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns
Published on: May 12, 2019
Lauren D Sculthorpe1, Kenneth B Campbell
1National Research Council Institute for Biodiagnostics (Atlantic), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. lauren.sculthorpe@nrc-cnrc.ca
Objective:
To determine whether the classic inverse relationship between the amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN) and deviant probability can be demonstrated to violations of a concrete rule pattern.
Methods:
In Experiment 1, oddball and patterned auditory sequences were presented with high (p = 0.16) and rare (p = 0.02) deviant probability. In Experiment 2, a slightly different pattern was presented with high, moderate (p = 0.08), low (p = 0.04), and rare deviant probability. In Experiment 3, deviants in the patterns from Experiments 1 and 2 were actively detected at high and rare probability.
Results:
In Experiment 1, the amplitude of the MMN varied inversely with deviant probability in both conditions. In Experiment 2, no effect of probability was observed. Experiment 3 supported the hypothesis that high deviant probability causes instability in the memory representation of the standard in the pattern from Experiment 1.
Conclusions:
The amplitude of the MMN to concrete pattern violations does not vary with deviant probability.
Significance:
The amplitude of the MMN may not vary with deviant probability. Once a stable memory representation is formed for the standard regularities in an auditory sequence, further examples may not strengthen that representation.
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