[AUDITORY] Sad news: Prof. Dr. Risto Näätänen has passed away

[István Winkler <winkler.istvan@xxxxxx>]

Dear Colleagues,

With deep sadness I inform you that prof Dr. Risto Näätänen passed away 
two weeks ago.

Risto Näätänen was a pioneer of employing brain measures 
(electroencephalography) to address questions of experimental 
psychology. He is best known for his discovery of the mismatch 
negativity (MMN) event-related brain potential (ERP) component, which 
allows the study of auditory sensory discrimination, memory, predictive 
coding, as well as passive attention, although he has also significantly 
contributed to our knowledge about the early effects of selective 
attention. The wide variety of clinical and non-clinical applications of 
MMN made it one of the most widely studied ERPs in psychophysiology.

Risto Näätänen has not only formed and directed one of the most 
influential research groups on auditory sensory cognition in his own 
country, the Cognitive Brain Research Unit at the Helsinki University, 
Finland, but was a central figure of the international research 
community, such as having served as the President of the Society for 
Psychophysiological Research. He has tutored, guided, and inspired 
generations of young psychologists and neuroscientists.

Having been one of his international PhD students then collaborating and 
discussing with him for over three decades, I have learned from him how 
to conduct research in a theoretically meaningful and methodologically 
sound way. I also got to know him as a generous and caring person, a 
true father figure helping young researchers not only to become good 
scientist but also to find their own way doing it.

I deeply feel the loss of him for myself, the international community of 
auditory researchers, and science itself.

István Winkler