5 m and at an angle of 45° to the right MAPK Inhibitor Library in vivo and left. The standard and deviant tones included the first two upper partials of the

fundamental frequency. Compared with the fundamental, the intensity of the second and third partials were −3 and −6 dB, respectively. The standard tones had a fundamental frequency of 500 Hz, were 200 ms in duration (including 10 ms rise and 20 ms fall times), and were presented at an intensity of 80 dB (sound pressure level) via both loudspeakers. Each deviant tone differed from the standard tones in frequency, intensity, duration, sound-source location, or by having a silent gap in the middle, but otherwise they were identical to the standard tones. The frequency deviants included large (f0: 750 or 333.3 Hz), Panobinostat cost medium (f0: 400 or 625 Hz) and small (f0: 454.5 or 550 Hz) frequency increments and decrements. The duration deviants included large, medium and small duration decrements, which were 100, 150, and 175 ms in duration, respectively. Only the responses to the largest frequency and duration deviants were included in the analysis because of their better signal-to-noise

ratio compared with the responses to the smaller deviants. The gap deviant had a 5 ms silent gap (5 ms fall and rise times) in the middle of the sound. The intensity deviants were either −6 or +6 dB compared with the standard. Finally, the sound-source location deviants were delivered through either only the left or right speaker (no intensity compensation was employed). The large frequency and

duration deviants were both presented 140 times and the intensity, sound-source location, and gap deviants, in turn, were presented 250 times each. In addition, repeating and varying novel sounds were included in the sequence. Similarly to the standard tones, the novel sounds were 200 ms in duration and their mean intensity was 80 dB. The varying novel sounds were machine sounds, animal calls, etc., whereas the repeating novel Amino acid sound was the word /nenä/ (‘nose’ in Finnish), spoken in a neutral female voice. The repeating and varying novel sounds were presented 216 and 72 times, respectively. Unlike the repeating novel sounds, each individual varying novel sound was presented no more than four times during the whole experiment. Furthermore, one-third of the varying novel sounds were presented via the right, one-third via the left, and one-third via both loudspeakers, whereas the repeating novel sounds were always presented through both loudspeakers. Because of these factors, the varying novel sounds are arguably more likely to trigger cognitive processes related to novelty detection and distraction than the repeating novel sounds. Consequently, only the responses to the varying novel sounds were included in the analysis of the current study.