Interaction between representations of different features of auditory sensory memory

The neurophysiological basis of sensory memory was studied by measuring the magnetic counterpart (MMNm) of the mismatch negativity (MMN) with a whole-head 122-channel magnetometer. The MMNm is a response to a difference in the presented stimulus and a neuronal memory trace formed by repeated standard stimuli. This trace must contain information about the feature differing in the deviant. Keeping one feature (frequency) constant, we studied how other stimulus features affect the strength of the MMNm. The MMNm to a frequency change was weaker when the other features varied than when they were constant. This suggests that the MMNm to a frequency change is not independent of other stimulus features.