scholarly journals Graded Visual Consciousness During the Attentional Blink

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Eiserbeck ◽  
Alexander Enge ◽  
Milena Rabovsky ◽  
Rasha Abdel Rahman
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Accuracy Measure ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Consciousness ◽  
Present Event

One of the ongoing debates about visual consciousness is whether it can be considered as an all-or-none or a graded phenomenon. This may depend on the experimental paradigm and the task used to investigate this question. The present event-related potential study (N = 32) focuses on the attentional blink paradigm for which so far only little and mixed evidence is available. Detection of T2 face targets during the attentional blink was assessed via an objective accuracy measure (reporting the faces’ gender), subjective visibility on a perceptual awareness scale (PAS) as well as event-related potentials time-locked to T2 onset (components P1, N1, N2, and P3). The behavioral results indicate a graded rather than an all-or-none pattern of visual awareness. Corresponding graded differences in the N1, N2, and P3 components were observed for the comparison of visibility levels. These findings suggest that conscious perception during the attentional blink can occur in a graded fashion.

scholarly journals Distrust Before First Sight: Knowledge- and Appearance-Based Effects of Trustworthiness on the Visual Consciousness of Faces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Eiserbeck ◽  
Alexander Enge ◽  
Milena Rabovsky ◽  
Rasha Abdel Rahman
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Early Posterior Negativity ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Consciousness ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Facial Trustworthiness

Not all visual stimuli processed by the brain reach the level of conscious perception. Previous research has shown that the emotional value of a stimulus is one of the factors that can affect whether it is consciously perceived. Here, we investigated whether social-affective knowledge influences a face’s chance to reach visual consciousness. Furthermore, we took into account the impact of facial appearance. Faces differing in facial trustworthiness (i.e., being perceived as more or less trustworthy based on appearance) were associated with neutral or negative socially relevant information. Subsequently, an attentional blink task was administered to examine whether the manipulated factors affect the faces’ chance to reach visual consciousness under conditions of reduced attentional resources. Participants showed enhanced detection of faces associated with negative as compared to neutral social information. In event-related potentials (ERPs), this was accompanied by effects in the time range of the early posterior negativity (EPN) component. These findings indicate that social-affective person knowledge is processed already before or during attentional selection and can affect which faces are prioritized for access to visual consciousness. In contrast, no clear evidence for an impact of facial trustworthiness during the attentional blink was found. This study was pre-registered using the Open Science Framework (OSF).

scholarly journals Lack of awareness despite complex visual processing: Evidence from event-related potentials in a case of selective metamorphopsia

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (27) ◽  
pp. 16055-16064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa M. Schubert ◽  
David Rothlein ◽  
Trevor Brothers ◽  
Emily L. Coderre ◽  
Kerry Ledoux ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
N170 Component ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Word Detection ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
High Level

Visual awareness is thought to result from integration of low- and high-level processing; instances of integration failure provide a crucial window into the cognitive and neural bases of awareness. We present neurophysiological evidence of complex cognitive processing in the absence of awareness, raising questions about the conditions necessary for visual awareness. We describe an individual with a neurodegenerative disease who exhibits impaired visual awareness for the digits 2 to 9, and stimuli presented in close proximity to these digits, due to perceptual distortion. We identified robust event-related potential responses indicating 1) face detection with the N170 component and 2) task-dependent target-word detection with the P3b component, despite no awareness of the presence of faces or target words. These data force us to reconsider the relationship between neural processing and visual awareness; even stimuli processed by a workspace-like cognitive system can remain inaccessible to awareness. We discuss how this finding challenges and constrains theories of visual awareness.

Neural dynamics of trainee teachers' emotional conflict processing: An event-related potential study

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Li Jin ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Jiamei Lu ◽  
Nianqu Chen ◽  
Lin Cheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
School Context ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
The Body ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
Congruent Condition ◽  
Slow Potential ◽  
Emotional Conflict ◽  
Trainee Teachers ◽  
Related Potentials

We investigated emotional conflict in an educational context with an emotional body–word Stroop paradigm, examining whether the N450 (a late fronto-central phasic negative event-related potential signature) and slow potential (SP) effects could be evoked in trainee teachers. The N450 effect is characterized by topography and negative polarity of an incongruent minus congruent difference potential, and the SP effect has positive polarity (incongruent minus congruent difference potential). Positive and negative body language examples were obtained from pupils in an actual school context, and emotional words were selected. Compound stimuli were presented, each comprising a congruent or incongruent word displayed across a body image. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants judged body expression valence. Reaction times were longer and accuracies were lower for the incongruent compared to the congruent condition. The N450 component amplitude in the incongruent condition was more negative than in the congruent condition. Results showed a behavioral interference effect and an N450 effect for trainee teachers in this context, thus indicating that the body–word task was efficient in assessing emotional conflict in an educational context, and trainee teachers' perception of body expressions of students could be influenced by emotional signals. The findings further the understanding of emotional conflict in an educational context.

scholarly journals Eliciting and Recording Event Related Potentials (ERPs) in Behaviourally Unresponsive Populations: A Retrospective Commentary on Critical Factors

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 835
Author(s):  
Alexander Rokos ◽  
Richard Mah ◽  
Rober Boshra ◽  
Amabilis Harrison ◽  
Tsee Leng Choy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Healthy Elderly ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Long Latency ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Relationship

A consistent limitation when designing event-related potential paradigms and interpreting results is a lack of consideration of the multivariate factors that affect their elicitation and detection in behaviorally unresponsive individuals. This paper provides a retrospective commentary on three factors that influence the presence and morphology of long-latency event-related potentials—the P3b and N400. We analyze event-related potentials derived from electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected from small groups of healthy youth and healthy elderly to illustrate the effect of paradigm strength and subject age; we analyze ERPs collected from an individual with severe traumatic brain injury to illustrate the effect of stimulus presentation speed. Based on these critical factors, we support that: (1) the strongest paradigms should be used to elicit event-related potentials in unresponsive populations; (2) interpretation of event-related potential results should account for participant age; and (3) speed of stimulus presentation should be slower in unresponsive individuals. The application of these practices when eliciting and recording event-related potentials in unresponsive individuals will help to minimize result interpretation ambiguity, increase confidence in conclusions, and advance the understanding of the relationship between long-latency event-related potentials and states of consciousness.

scholarly journals Absence of Face-specific Cortical Activity in the Complete Absence of Awareness: Converging Evidence from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Event-related Potentials

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 396-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valia Rodríguez ◽  
Russell Thompson ◽  
Mark Stokes ◽  
Matthew Brett ◽  
Indira Alvarez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Detection ◽  
Brain Area ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Backward Masking ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Frontal Operculum ◽  
Detailed Assessment

In this study, we explored the neural correlates of perceptual awareness during a masked face detection task. To assess awareness more precisely than in previous studies, participants employed a 4-point scale to rate subjective visibility. An event-related fMRI and a high-density ERP study were carried out. Imaging data showed that conscious face detection was linked to activation of fusiform and occipital face areas. Frontal and parietal regions, including the pre-SMA, inferior frontal sulcus, anterior insula/frontal operculum, and intraparietal sulcus, also responded strongly when faces were consciously perceived. In contrast, no brain area showed face-selective activity when participants reported no impression of a face. ERP results showed that conscious face detection was associated with enhanced N170 and also with the presence of a second negativity around 300 msec and a slow positivity around 415 msec. Again, face-related activity was absent when faces were not consciously perceived. We suggest that, under conditions of backward masking, ventral stream and fronto-parietal regions show similar, strong links of face-related activity to conscious perception and stress the importance of a detailed assessment of awareness to examine activity related to unseen stimulus events.

scholarly journals Automaticity of Early Sexual Attention: An Event-Related Potential Study

Sexual Abuse ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107906322110242
Author(s):  
Anastasios Ziogas ◽  
Benedikt Habermeyer ◽  
Wolfram Kawohl ◽  
Elmar Habermeyer ◽  
Andreas Mokros
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Sexual Interest ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Forensic Assessment ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Sexual Preferences ◽  
Motor Responses ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Promising Line

A promising line of research on forensic assessment of paraphilic sexual interest focuses on behavioral measures of visual attention using sexual stimuli as distractors. The present study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with behavioral measures to investigate whether detection of a hidden sexual preference can be improved with ERPs. Normal variants of sexual orientation were used for a proof-of-concept investigation. Accordingly, 40 heterosexual and 40 gay men participated in the study. Within each group, half of the participants were instructed to hide their sexual orientation. The results showed that a match between sexual orientation and stimulus delays responses and influences ERP before motor responses. Late ERP components showed higher potential in differentiating hidden sexual preferences than motor responses, thereby showing how ERPs can be used in combination with reaction time measures to potentially facilitate the detection of hidden sexual preferences.

Phonetic Encoding Contributes to the Processing of Linguistic Prosody at the Word Level: Cross-Linguistic Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Luodi Yu ◽  
Jiajing Zeng ◽  
Suiping Wang ◽  
Yang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Acoustic Control ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Prosodic Phonology

Purpose This study aimed to examine whether abstract knowledge of word-level linguistic prosody is independent of or integrated with phonetic knowledge. Method Event-related potential (ERP) responses were measured from 18 adult listeners while they listened to native and nonnative word-level prosody in speech and in nonspeech. The prosodic phonology (speech) conditions included disyllabic pseudowords spoken in Chinese and in English matched for syllabic structure, duration, and intensity. The prosodic acoustic (nonspeech) conditions were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which eliminated the phonetic content while preserving the acoustic prosodic features. Results We observed language-specific effects on the ERP that native stimuli elicited larger late negative response (LNR) amplitude than nonnative stimuli in the prosodic phonology conditions. However, no such effect was observed in the phoneme-free prosodic acoustic control conditions. Conclusions The results support the integration view that word-level linguistic prosody likely relies on the phonetic content where the acoustic cues embedded in. It remains to be examined whether the LNR may serve as a neural signature for language-specific processing of prosodic phonology beyond auditory processing of the critical acoustic cues at the suprasyllabic level.

scholarly journals The Role of Leadership Level in College Students’ Decision-Making: Evidence From Event-Related Potential Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Yang ◽  
Shunshun Du ◽  
Hui He ◽  
Chengming Wang ◽  
Xueke Shan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Leadership Group ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Acceptance Rates ◽  
Economic Transaction

Although risk decision-making plays an important role in leadership practice, the distinction in behavior between humans with differing levels of leadership, as well as the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms involved, remain unclear. In this study, the Ultimatum Game (UG) was utilized in concert with electroencephalograms (EEG) to investigate the temporal course of cognitive and emotional processes involved in economic decision-making between high and low leadership level college students. Behavioral results from this study found that the acceptance rates in an economic transaction, when the partner was a computer under unfair/sub unfair condition, were significantly higher than in transactions with real human partners for the low leadership group, while there was no significant difference in acceptance rates for the high leadership group. Results from Event-Related Potentials (ERP) analysis further indicated that there was a larger P3 amplitude in the low leadership group than in the high leadership group. We concluded that the difference between high and low leadership groups was at least partly due to their different emotional management abilities.

scholarly journals ERP CORE: An Open Resource for Human Event-Related Potential Research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily S. Kappenman ◽  
Jaclyn Farrens ◽  
Wendy Zhang ◽  
Andrew X Stewart ◽  
Steven J Luck
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Experiment Control ◽  
Related Potentials

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are noninvasive measures of human brain activity that index a range of sensory, cognitive, affective, and motor processes. Despite their broad application across basic and clinical research, there is little standardization of ERP paradigms and analysis protocols across studies. To address this, we created ERP CORE (Compendium of Open Resources and Experiments), a set of optimized paradigms, experiment control scripts, data processing pipelines, and sample data (N = 40 neurotypical young adults) for seven widely used ERP components: N170, mismatch negativity (MMN), N2pc, N400, P3, lateralized readiness potential (LRP), and error-related negativity (ERN). This resource makes it possible for researchers to 1) employ standardized ERP paradigms in their research, 2) apply carefully designed analysis pipelines and use a priori selected parameters for data processing, 3) rigorously assess the quality of their data, and 4) test new analytic techniques with standardized data from a wide range of paradigms.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions in Healthy Young Men: Event-Related Potential and Behavioral Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yutong Liu ◽  
Huini Peng ◽  
Jianhui Wu ◽  
Hongxia Duan
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Childhood Maltreatment ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Childhood Emotional Abuse ◽  
The Relationship

Background: Individuals exposed to childhood maltreatment present with a deficiency in emotional processing in later life. Most studies have focused mainly on childhood physical or sexual abuse; however, childhood emotional abuse, a core issue underlying different forms of childhood maltreatment, has received relatively little attention. The current study explored whether childhood emotional abuse is related to the impaired processing of emotional facial expressions in healthy young men.Methods: The emotional facial processing was investigated in a classical gender discrimination task while the event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected. Childhood emotional abuse was assessed by a Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) among 60 healthy young men. The relationship between the score of emotional abuse and the behavioral and the ERP index of emotional facial expression (angry, disgust, and happy) were explored.Results: Participants with a higher score of childhood emotional abuse responded faster on the behavioral level and had a smaller P2 amplitude on the neural level when processing disgust faces compared to neutral faces.Discussion: Individuals with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse may quickly identify negative faces with less cognitive resources consumed, suggesting altered processing of emotional facial expressions in young men with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse.

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