A motor–auditory cross-modal oddball paradigm revealed top–down modulation of auditory perception in a predictive context

A left or right button press was frequently (85%) assigned to 0.5-s delayed feedback of a binaural high- or low-pitched tone, respectively. Neuromagnetic responses were recorded from eight subjects while executing a self-paced (~ 2 s) and self-chosen (∼ 50%) button press with their eyes closed. Infrequent occurrences (15%) of counter-assigned auditory feedback elicited mismatch negativity-like activities bilaterally localized in the vicinity of Heschl's gyrus. The present result suggests that auditory perception is modulated by top–down prediction not only in visuoauditory but also in motor (kinesthetic)–auditory contexts.