, 1998). Horizontal and vertical eye movements were monitored using electrodes placed below the outer canthi of both eyes and at the nasion. Additional electrodes were placed at the tip of the nose, and left and right mastoid sites. EEG and electrooculogram (EOG) activities were sampled at 512 Hz, and EEG activity was off-line re-referenced

to the electrode placed at the tip of the nose. Then, EOG artifact correction by regression was applied as described in Schlögl et al. (2007), with offline passband 0.2–100 Hz (Kaiser Window, Beta 5.6533, filter order 4637 points). A 25-Hz low-pass filter with the same filter order was applied to the EOG artifact-corrected data before epoching. Channels with technical malfunction (range 1–4 in seven out of 15 subjects) were interpolated using spherical spline interpolation (Perrin et al., 1989, 1990). Epochs started 50  ms before and ended 250  ms after tone onset. selleck products As in our paradigm there is no standard after the first deviant in deviant pairs, the same

standard ERP served for comparison for both first and repeated deviant ERPs. Epochs were averaged Afatinib molecular weight separately for standard stimuli (excluding the standard tone after the repeated deviant, and after single deviants), first and repeated deviant tones both drawn from pairs. Baseline correction (−50 to 0 ms) was applied to both first and repeated deviant epochs. First deviant baseline mean values were used to baseline-correct repeated deviant epochs. This procedure resolved any confounding effect for repeated deviant processing arising from baselining during first deviant processing. Epochs containing amplitude changes exceeding 100 μV at any EEG channel were excluded (3.4% on average across conditions per subject, range 0.1–9.6%). Before entering statistical analysis, ERP amplitudes were re-referenced to the averaged mastoid recordings to obtain an estimate of the full MMN amplitude (Schröger, 1998). MMN is best seen at frontocentral sites in the difference waves obtained subtracting

the standard from the deviant ERPs (Schröger, 2005). Mean voltage amplitudes were calculated Glutamate dehydrogenase within a pre-defined time window between 125 and 165 ms after sound onset (around deviant N1 peak). The deviance response highlighted by the difference waves is presumably partly comprised of N1 refractoriness effects and MMN (Schröger, 1998, 2005). For simplicity, we refer to it as MMN. Data were subjected to a series of univariate repeated-measures analyses of variance (anovas). The modulation of first-order prediction error was tested separately for first and repeated deviant tones on N1 amplitudes in the MMN latency range at Fz by an anova with the factors stimulus type (deviant vs. standard), repetition probability (referring to deviant repetition: high vs. low) and temporal regularity (anisochronous vs. isochronous sequences). Higher-order formal regularity effects were tested on the deviant minus standard difference waves (i.e.