Mismatch negativity and psychophysical detection of rising and falling intensity sounds

Human subjects demonstrate a perceptual priority for rising level sounds compared with falling level sounds. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether or not the perceptual preference for rising intensity can be found in the preattentive processing indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN). Reversed oddball stimulation was used to produce MMNs and to test the behavioral discrimination of rising, falling and constant level sounds. Three types of stimuli served as standards or deviants in different blocks: constant level sounds and two kinds of rising/falling sounds with gradual or stepwise change of intensity. The MMN amplitudes were calculated by subtracting ERPs to identical stimuli presented as standard in one block and deviant in another block. Both rising and falling level deviants elicited MMNs which peaked after 250 ms and did not overlap with N1 waves. MMN was elicited by level changes even when the deviants were not discriminated behaviorally. Most importantly, we found dissociation between earlier and later stages of auditory processing: the MMN responses to the level changes were mostly affected by the direction of deviance (increment or decrement) in the sequence, whereas behavioral performance depended on the direction of the level change within the stimuli (rising or falling).