Automatic detection of violations of statistical regularities in the periphery is affected by the focus of spatial attention: A visual mismatch negativity study.

We investigated the effect of spatial attention on an event-related potential signature of automatic detection of violations of statistical regularities, namely, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN). To vary the task-field and the location of vMMN-related stimulation, in the attentional field the stimuli of a tracking task with a steady and a moving (target) bar were presented. The target stimuli of the task appeared either relatively close or far from a passive (task-irrelevant) oddball or equiprobable sequence at the lower part of the screen. Stimuli of the oddball sequence were shapes tilted either 45° (standard, p = 0.8) or 135° (deviant, p = 0.2), while the equiprobable sequence consisted of additional three shapes with identical number of lines to the oddball stimuli. Deviant stimuli in close proximity to a continuously attended field elicited larger vMMN than similar stimuli farther away from the stimulus field. In the condition with a smaller distance between the field of the tracking task and the vMMN-related field, the deviant stimuli and the vMMN was followed by a posterior positivity. According to these results, spatial attention modulates vMMN and is capable of initiating further processing of the deviant stimuli.