The extraction of MMN modulated by attention

The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the auditory event-related brain potential can be measured in the absence of attention and without any task requirements, which makes it the objective measure of the central auditory function. While in the collection of evoked potentials, selective attention may affect the appearance of the evoked MMN. In some cases, MMN may be followed or even substituted by P300. We investigated the role of attention on the MMN extraction. Based on the discussion of such phenomenon, an ensemble average method modulated by attention is proposed in the present study. This method may restrain the affection of distraction and increase the amplitude of MMN to a great extent. Furthermore, such method may shorten the time cost of MMN extraction experiment, which will be helpful for the research of complex function nature of neural discrimination mechanism.