Mismatch negativity (MMN) to pitch change is susceptible to order-dependent bias.

Pattern learning facilitates prediction about upcoming events. Within the auditory system such predictions can be studied by examining effects on a component of the auditory-evoked potential known as mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is elicited when sound does not conform to the characteristics inferred from statistical probabilities derived from the recent past.

Reactive control processes contributing to residual switch cost and mixing cost across the adult lifespan.

In task-switching paradigms, performance is better when repeating the same task than when alternating between tasks (switch cost) and when repeating a task alone rather than intermixed with another task (mixing cost). These costs remain even after extensive practice and when task cues enable advanced preparation (residual costs). Moreover, residual reaction time mixing cost has been consistently shown to increase with age.

What controls gain in gain control? Mismatch negativity (MMN), priors and system biases.

Repetitious patterns enable the auditory system to form prediction models specifying the most likely characteristics of subsequent sounds. Pattern deviations elicit mismatch negativity (MMN), the amplitude of which is modulated by the size of the deviation and confidence in the model. Todd et al.

Not so primitive: context-sensitive meta-learning about unattended sound sequences.

Mismatch negativity (MMN), an evoked response potential elicited when a "deviant" sound violates a regularity in the auditory environment, is integral to auditory scene processing and has been used to demonstrate "primitive intelligence" in auditory short-term memory. Using a new multiple-context and -timescale protocol we show that MMN magnitude displays a context-sensitive modulation depending on changes in the probability of a deviant at multiple temporal scales. We demonstrate a primacy bias causing asymmetric evidence-based modulation of predictions about the environment, and we demonstrate that learning how to learn about deviant probability (meta-learning) induces context-sensitive variation in the accessibility of predictive long-term memory representations that underpin the MMN.

Variability in proactive and reactive cognitive control processes across the adult lifespan.

Task-switching paradigms produce a highly consistent age-related increase in mixing cost [longer response time (RT) on repeat trials in mixed-task than single-task blocks] but a less consistent age effect on switch cost (longer RT on switch than repeat trials in mixed-task blocks). We use two approaches to examine the adult lifespan trajectory of control processes contributing to mixing cost and switch cost: latent variables derived from an evidence accumulation model of choice, and event-related potentials (ERP) that temporally differentiate proactive (cue-driven) and reactive (target-driven) control processes. Under highly practiced and prepared task conditions, aging was associated with increasing RT mixing cost but reducing RT switch cost.

Task practice differentially modulates task-switching performance across the adult lifespan.

Cued-trials task-switching paradigms have been used extensively to examine ageing-related changes in cognitive control. Many studies report an increase in mixing cost (i.e.