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Numerical discrimination in newborn infants as revealed by event-related potentials to tone sequences

Ruusuvirta, Timo ; Huotilainen, Minna ; Fellman, Vineta LU orcid and Naatanen, Risto (2009) In European Journal of Neuroscience 30(8). p.1620-1624
Abstract
Humans are able to attentively discriminate number from 6 months of age. However, the age of the emergence of this ability at the pre-attentive stage of processing remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in newborn human infants aged from 3 to 5 days. At 500-ms intervals, the infants were passively exposed to 200-ms sequences of four tones. Each tone could be either 1000 or 1500 Hz in frequency. In most sequences (standards), the ratio of the tones of one frequency to those of the other frequency in a sequence was 2 : 2. In the remaining sequences (deviants, P = 0.1), this ratio was either 3 : 1 or 4 : 0. The mismatch response of ERPs could not be found for 3 : 1 deviants, but it was a robust finding for 4 : 0... (More)
Humans are able to attentively discriminate number from 6 months of age. However, the age of the emergence of this ability at the pre-attentive stage of processing remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in newborn human infants aged from 3 to 5 days. At 500-ms intervals, the infants were passively exposed to 200-ms sequences of four tones. Each tone could be either 1000 or 1500 Hz in frequency. In most sequences (standards), the ratio of the tones of one frequency to those of the other frequency in a sequence was 2 : 2. In the remaining sequences (deviants, P = 0.1), this ratio was either 3 : 1 or 4 : 0. The mismatch response of ERPs could not be found for 3 : 1 deviants, but it was a robust finding for 4 : 0 deviants, showing the neurophysiological ability of the infants to register the larger deviant-standard difference. The findings suggest very early sensitivity to auditory numerical information in infancy. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
mismatch response, infant, event-related potential (ERP), human, number
in
European Journal of Neuroscience
volume
30
issue
8
pages
1620 - 1624
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • wos:000270958700021
  • scopus:70350228645
ISSN
1460-9568
DOI
10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06938.x
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
6f241093-0ceb-4d9e-86e1-f73fd7b7612e (old id 1506951)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 12:20:20
date last changed
2022-03-21 02:44:56
@article{6f241093-0ceb-4d9e-86e1-f73fd7b7612e,
  abstract     = {{Humans are able to attentively discriminate number from 6 months of age. However, the age of the emergence of this ability at the pre-attentive stage of processing remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in newborn human infants aged from 3 to 5 days. At 500-ms intervals, the infants were passively exposed to 200-ms sequences of four tones. Each tone could be either 1000 or 1500 Hz in frequency. In most sequences (standards), the ratio of the tones of one frequency to those of the other frequency in a sequence was 2 : 2. In the remaining sequences (deviants, P = 0.1), this ratio was either 3 : 1 or 4 : 0. The mismatch response of ERPs could not be found for 3 : 1 deviants, but it was a robust finding for 4 : 0 deviants, showing the neurophysiological ability of the infants to register the larger deviant-standard difference. The findings suggest very early sensitivity to auditory numerical information in infancy.}},
  author       = {{Ruusuvirta, Timo and Huotilainen, Minna and Fellman, Vineta and Naatanen, Risto}},
  issn         = {{1460-9568}},
  keywords     = {{mismatch response; infant; event-related potential (ERP); human; number}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{8}},
  pages        = {{1620--1624}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{European Journal of Neuroscience}},
  title        = {{Numerical discrimination in newborn infants as revealed by event-related potentials to tone sequences}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06938.x}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06938.x}},
  volume       = {{30}},
  year         = {{2009}},
}