Further characterization of “subject’s own name (SON) negativity,” an ERP component reflecting early preattentive detection of SON

BACKGROUND: Subject's own name (SON) is detected automatically and unconsciously in the brain. SON negativity, an early wave in the mismatch negativity latency range, has been proposed as a potential event-related potential (ERP) index of the automatic preattentive detection of SON. SON negativity is probably not a general measure of familiarity, as it is not elicited by the subject's parent's name. We further investigated the specificity of this response by testing whether it is elicited by a name to which subjects were strongly but only temporarily familiarized. FINDINGS: Subjects performed a task to detect an arbitrary unfamiliar name for forty minutes. Then, that name was presented randomly and equiprobably with nine novel unfamiliar names while they played a video game and tried to ignore the sounds. SON negativity was not elicited, even when subjects spontaneously noticed hearing the familiarized name. CONCLUSIONS: The finding supports the notion that SON negativity represents a specific ERP measure of the early preattentive detection of SON, rather than a general measure of familiarity.