Poster #5 - Auditory change-detection and attentional capture in infants: A time-frequency approach

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Passive listening tasks (e.g., auditory oddball paradigms) combined with neuroimaging methods reduce motor and cognitive demand for participants, offering an effective method to assess auditory attention processes starting in infancy. The three-stimulus auditory oddball paradigm involves the presentation of frequent (Standard), infrequent (Deviant), and novel sounds to examine individuals’ ability to detect changes among stimuli (Näätänen et al., 2007) and measure attentional capture (Polich, 2007). However, existing EEG work with this paradigm has mostly focused on event-related potentials (ERPs) and findings have been mixed. For example, some ERP studies with infants (<12 months) found negative responses to deviant sounds (e.g., Cheour et al., 1998), whereas others found positive responses to deviant sounds (e.g., Marshall et al., 2009). These discrepancies indicate that different measures are needed to gain a comprehensive view of EEG studies. While ERPs are good at capturing phase-locked signals, time-frequency analyses can better represent non-phase-locked signals (Morales & Bowers, 2022). Time-frequency analyses separately measure the amplitude and phase of the neural oscillations across different frequencies (Cohen, 2014). Therefore, our current study utilized time-frequency analyses to capture the signal strength and consistency of infants’ neural responses to auditory stimuli.

Infants (N = 70; Mage= 5.04 months) completed a three-stimulus auditory oddball task while collecting EEG. During the task, three types of sound stimuli were presented, including standard (80% of trials), deviant (10 % of trials), and novel sounds (10% of trials). Standard and deviant sounds were simple tones composed of sine waves of 500Hz and 650Hz, respectively. Novel sounds were complex sounds (e.g., a cow mooing; Fabianni et al., 1996). We performed ERP and time-frequency analyses to measure signal strength (power) and consistency (intertrial phase synchrony, ITPS) in the theta band (3-6 Hz; Morales & Bowers, 2022).

For ERPs analyses, we observed a clear P3a component and a Positive Mismatch Response (P-MMR), indexed by an amplitude increase between 250 and 500 ms in frontal electrodes in response to novel and deviant, compared to standard stimuli (p’s<.001; Figure 1). Although we observed a negative deflection between 150 and 250 ms in response to deviant stimuli, it was not significantly different to the response to standard stimuli (p’s>.59; Figure 1); thus, we did not observe a significant mismatch negativity (MMN) component at frontal or central electrodes.

For time-frequency analyses, we observed a significant increase for novel and deviant, compared to standard stimuli, on signal strength (power) and consistency (ITPS) in the theta band (p’s<.031; Figure 2). These increases are in consistent with previous studies on auditory attention in children and adults (Bishop et al., 2011). Thus, frontocentral theta signal strength and consistency may be implicated in change-detection and attention orienting from the first months of life. Moreover, relative to ERPs, time-frequency analyses may serve as a more consistent metric of the attentional process throughout development. Finally, time-frequency metrics may provide an alternative way to examine individual differences besides ERP measures. Future analyses for the poster will examine relations between ERP and time-frequency measures and infants’ temperament.

Authors

• Wenyi Xu, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• George A Buzzell, Florida International University

• Courtney Filippi, New York University School of Medicine

• Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park

• Santiago Morales, University of Southern California