Mismatch negativity

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects the brain's automatic detection of changes in auditory stimuli. It is typically observed in response to auditory oddball paradigms, where a series of repetitive standard sounds is interrupted by infrequent deviant sounds that differ in some characteristic, such as pitch, duration, or intensity. MMN occurs pre-attentively, meaning that it can be elicited without the need for conscious attention to the auditory stimuli.