The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive function

TLDR

Auditory event‑related potentials such as mismatch negativity and the NI component demonstrate that the brain automatically processes physical stimulus features and that conscious perception involves matching inputs to an attentional trace. The study examines how attention and automaticity influence auditory processing using ERP measures and proposes an integrative model of these mechanisms. The proposed model relies on mismatch negativity, the NI component, and additional physiological measures to explain automatic and attentional processing in audition. ERP data reveal that physical features are processed regardless of attention, recent stimuli are stored in echoic memory, and passive attentional shifts—mediated by mismatch negativity and processing negativity—support early‑selection theories and explain how unattended stimuli can be semantically processed.

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the role of attention and automaticity in auditory processing as revealed by event-related potential (ERP) research. An ERP component called the mismatch negativity , generated by the brain's automatic response to changes in repetitive auditory input, reveals that physical features of auditory stimuli are fully processed whether or not they are attended. It also suggests that there exist precise neuronal representations of the physical features of recent auditory stimuli, perhaps the traces underlying acoustic sensory (“echoic”) memory. A mechanism of passive attention switching in response to changes in repetitive input is also implicated. Conscious perception of discrete acoustic stimuli might be mediated by some of the mechanisms underlying another ERP component (NI), one sensitive to stimulus onset and offset. Frequent passive attentional shifts might accountforthe effect cognitive psychologists describe as “the breakthrough of the unattended” (Broadbent 1982), that is, that even unattended stimuli may be semantically processed, without assuming automatic semantic processing or late selection in selective attention. The processing negativity supports the early-selection theory and may arise from a mechanism for selectively attending to stimuli defined by certain features. This stimulus selection occurs in the form ofa matching process in which each input is compared with the “attentional trace,” a voluntarily maintained representation of the task-relevant features of the stimulus to be attended. The attentional mechanism described might underlie the stimulus-set mode of attention proposed by Broadbent. Finally, a model of automatic and attentional processing in audition is proposed that is based mainly on the aforementioned ERP components and some other physiological measures.