Temporal duration processing in unisensory and multisensory stimuli: MMN responses to non-linguistic stimuli

Multisensory processing plays a critical role in cognitive skills. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neural responses of typical adults to duration differences in non-linguistic unisensory and multisensory stimuli, and their potential association with reading skills. We analysed the amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN) evoked by duration differences in non-linguistic auditory, visual, and audiovisual stimuli in 32 typical adult readers. Significant MMN responses were observed at Fz for auditory-only and audiovisual modalities in decrement duration differences. The smallest significant difference detected was a 20% deviation from the standard. Critically, the audiovisual stimuli yielded a stronger MMN compared to the auditory-only stimuli, which suggests that the combination of sensory modalities facilitates discrimination and enhances the precision of prediction error. However, none of the electrophysiological responses explained the variance in reading skills. The results indicate that the perception of duration differences of non-linguistic stimuli is improved in congruent multisensory settings but has no association with reading in typical adults.