Pre-conference workshop: Methodological aspects of MMN research
Tuesday, Sep 8, 2015
10:00-17:00
SKH 133
MMN from a cognitive point of view
Department of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
alexandra.bendixen@uni-oldenburg.de
The mismatch negativity (MMN) can serve as a powerful tool for studying questions of perception or cognition. For instance, MMN can be used to assess whether participants are able to discriminate between two different stimuli, whether they are able to pick up certain regularities from their sensory environment, whether they have formed a given perceptual object representation, and so on. However, the inferences made in such research approaches are often very indirect, such that the researcher must bear in mind a range of alternative interpretations - not only when MMN is present, but even more so when MMN is absent in a given situation or population. The talk will address typical use cases of the MMN and discuss which interpretations are viable as well as how to avoid common misinterpretations.