Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 17, 2026

Development of a Gaze-Contingent Display Framework Designed for Perceptual and Oculomotor Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
Published on: April 11, 2025
Visual mismatch negativity to vanishing parts of objects in younger and older adults
István Sulykos1,2, Zsófia Anna Gaál1, István Czigler1
1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Centre for Natural Sciences, HAS, Budapest, Hungary.
Abstract:
We investigated visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) to vanishing parts of continuously present objects by comparing the event-related potentials (ERPs) to infrequently (deviant) and frequently (standard) disappearing parts of the objects. This paradigm both excludes low-level stimulus-specific adaptation differences between the responses to deviants and standards, and increases the ecological validity of the stimuli. In comparison to frequently disappearing parts of the stimulus objects, infrequently vanishing parts elicited posterior negative event-related brain activity (vMMN). However, no vMMN emerged to the reappearance of the same parts of the objects. We compared the ERPs of an older and a younger sample of participants. In the 120-180 ms time period vMMN was similar in the two age groups, but in the 180-220 ms time period vMMN emerged only in the younger participants. We consider this difference as an index of more elaborate automatic processing of infrequent stimulus changes in younger adults.
Related Concept Videos
Visual Agnosia
Perceptual Constancy
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...
Color Vision
Depth Perception and Spatial Vision
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Prosopagnosia

