When an action does not yield the sensory action effect associated with it, prediction error (PE) signals are generated. The present study investigates auditory event-related potential (ERP) markers of PE for violations of strong action-effect couplings as a function of whether the participants’ intention focuses on a particular action or a particular action effect. Participants produced high- and low-pitched tones by left and right button presses according to a pattern of visual stimuli. While the instruction as well as the action and tone sequences produced by the participants were identical, the type of intention induced by the visual symbols differed (in a between-subject design): In the action-effect intention group, the pattern consisted of “notes” (for high/low pitch), in the action intention group it consisted of “letters” (for left/right button-press). Occasionally, a button-press did not produce the associated sensory action effect. These incongruent sounds elicited an enhanced auditory N1 compared to congruent sounds in the “notes” but not the “letters” group which we interpret as PE signal. Actions selected by the intended action effect in the “notes” group presumably induced a predictive sensory representation of the action outcome, its violation resulting in an early PE at the level of the auditory N1. N2b and P3 were elicited in both groups. This suggests that the respective action-effect couplings were represented, and their violation processed at a conceptual level also in the “letters” group. These results support theories postulating that event representations bind together features of stimuli, actions, and associated outcomes.

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is a well-studied event-related potential (ERP) component in the EEG reflecting deviance detection in the auditory modality. It taps into the basic functioning of auditory regularity processing. The auditory multi-feature paradigm is widely used in sensitive and special populations to measure MMN simultaneously for different sound features in a short amount of time. It is consensus in the field that both adaptation and genuine deviance detection contribute to the “classic” MMN computed as deviant minus standard ERP difference. However, no attempts have yet been made to disentangle adaptation from “genuine” MMN in the multi-feature paradigm. Here, we propose a cascadic control condition for the auditory multi-feature paradigm that controls for adaptation and physical differences between standard and deviant sounds. Using this new paradigm, we measured genuine MMN, computed as deviant minus control ERP difference, for frequency, location, intensity, and duration deviants. Genuine MMN amplitudes for frequency and location were found substantially smaller than in traditional paradigms. No genuine intensity MMN and only a later and smaller genuine duration MMN were found. The results suggest stronger contributions of adaptation than in the traditional oddball paradigm. Controlling for adaptation is particularly relevant in research concerning predictive processing and the use of MMN as a biomarker related to impaired NMDA receptor synaptic transmission as observed in schizophrenia. The presented multi-feature cascadic control condition enables the measurement of genuine MMN, which presumably reflects higher-order cortical computations, such as predictive processing, still in a short amount of time.