Differential modulation of the neurocomputational signature of early and late mismatch responses to spoken words by awareness and task relevance

Word-related mismatch negativity and P3 in a preregistered EEG study were elicited only when spoken words were task-relevant, with P3 increasing for target-relevant oddballs.

• Why it matters: Prior mismatch research using tones leaves unclear how awareness and attention shape mismatch responses to auditory verbal stimuli that carry lexical-semantic meaning.
• What they did: The study used EEG to separate awareness, general task-relevance, and target-relevance of word oddballs, then applied single-trial neurocomputational models to infer adaptation versus prediction error timing.
• The result: Modeling indicated early task-relevant MMN reflects adaptation, while later MMN reflects prediction error; the full MMN appeared under target-relevance, and P3 arose independent of relevance, implying attention is required for word MMRs.

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