Concurrent Assessment of Sequential Auditory ERPs Using an Optimized Paired-stimulus Local-global Paradigm

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Comprehensive assessment of auditory processing is crucial for understanding perceptual and attentional functions, as well as detecting related deficits in clinical populations. Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) track key stages through time-locked components that emerge from early sensory processing (P1-N1-P2 complex) and automatic deviance detection (mismatch negativity, MMN) to involuntary attention orienting (P3a) and voluntary attention engagement (P3b). However, current approaches predominantly focus on isolated ERP components demonstrated through group-level statistical difference, while paradigms capable of capturing sequential components with high individual sensitivity remain scarce. Here, we optimized the local-global paradigm with a paired-stimulus design, strategically capturing pre-attentive to voluntary processing by contrasting responses to within-pair violations (local effect) versus across-pair violations (global effect). We evaluated this paradigm in 30 healthy participants under both active (target counting) and passive (visual distraction) conditions. Results demonstrated that both conditions reliably elicited complete pre-attentive components (P1-N1-P2 and MMN) as confirmed by cluster-based permutation tests, achieving 30/30 individual-level sensitivity validated through intrasubject classification analysis. Furthermore, comparison between active and passive conditions revealed significant differences specifically in the 272-392ms and 272-400ms window ( p < 0.05) under two levels of global deviants. This contrast successfully dissociated voluntary from involuntary attention with 86.67% and 93.33% individual sensitivity, respectively. Moreover, the active-passive discrimination depended primarily on the number of epochs sampled ( p <0.001) rather than the number of sensors used ( p >0.05). These findings validate our paired-stimulus local-global paradigm as a reliable approach for assessing sequential auditory ERPs, offering significant advantages with potential applications in clinical evaluation of perceptual and attentional impairments.

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