Wilhelm-Wundt-Institute of Psychology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Max Planck School of Cognition, Leipzig, Germany.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2023 Nov;85(8):2731-2750. doi: 10.3758/s13414-023-02763-9. Epub 2023 Aug 2.
The human auditory system is believed to represent regularities inherent in auditory information in internal models. Sounds not matching the standard regularity (deviants) elicit prediction error, alerting the system to information not explainable within currently active models. Here, we examine the widely neglected characteristic of deviants bearing predictive information themselves. In a modified version of the oddball paradigm, using higher-order regularities, we set up different expectations regarding the sound following a deviant. Higher-order regularities were defined by the relation of pitch within tone pairs (rather than absolute pitch of individual tones). In a deviant detection task participants listened to oddball sequences including two deviant types following diametrically opposed rules: one occurred mostly in succession (high repetition probability) and the other mostly in isolation (low repetition probability). Participants in Experiment 1 were not informed (naïve), whereas in Experiment 2 they were made aware of the repetition rules. Response times significantly decreased from first to second deviant when repetition probability was high-albeit more in the presence of explicit rule knowledge. There was no evidence of a facilitation effect when repetition probability was low. Significantly more false alarms occurred in response to standards following high compared with low repetition probability deviants, but only in participants aware of the repetition rules. These findings provide evidence that not only deviants violating lower- but also higher-order regularities can inform predictions about auditory events. More generally, they confirm the utility of this new paradigm to gather further insights into the predictive properties of the human brain.
人类听觉系统被认为在内部模型中表示听觉信息固有的规律性。不符合标准规律性的声音（偏差）会引起预测误差，提醒系统注意当前活动模型无法解释的信息。在这里，我们研究了被广泛忽视的具有预测信息的偏差特征。在一种修改后的Oddball 范式中，我们使用了更高阶的规律性，对跟随偏差后的声音产生了不同的期望。高阶规律性是由音对（而不是单个音的绝对音高）内的音高关系定义的。在一项偏差检测任务中，参与者听取了奇数序列，其中包括两种违反截然相反规则的偏差类型：一种主要连续出现（高重复概率），另一种主要单独出现（低重复概率）。实验 1 中的参与者没有得到通知（天真），而在实验 2 中，他们了解了重复规则。当重复概率较高时，尽管在存在明确规则知识的情况下，反应时间从第一个偏差显著减少到第二个偏差。当重复概率较低时，没有证据表明存在促进效应。与低重复概率偏差相比，高重复概率偏差后的标准会引起更多的错误警报，但只有在参与者了解重复规则的情况下才会出现这种情况。这些发现提供了证据，表明不仅违反较低阶规律的偏差，而且违反更高阶规律的偏差也可以提供有关听觉事件的预测信息。更一般地说，它们证实了这种新范式的实用性，可以进一步深入了解人类大脑的预测特性。
