Reduced Influence of Perceptual Context in Schizophrenia: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Evidence

AbstractBackgroundAccurate perception of visual contours is essential for seeing and differentiating objects in the environment. Both the ability to detect visual contours and the influence of perceptual context created by surrounding stimuli are diminished in people with schizophrenia. The central aim of the present study was to better understand the biological underpinnings of impaired contour integration and weakened effects of perceptual context. Additionally, we sought to determine whether visual perceptual abnormalities reflect genetic factors in schizophrenia and are present in other severe mental disorders.MethodsWe examined behavioral data and event-related potentials (ERPs) collected during the perception of simple linear contours embedded in similar background stimuli in 27 patients with schizophrenia (SCZ), 23 patients with bipolar disorder, 23 first-degree relatives of SCZ and 37 controls.ResultsSCZ exhibited impaired visual contour detection while patients with bipolar disorder exhibited intermediate performance. The orientation of neighboring stimuli (i.e., flankers) relative to the contour modulated perception across all groups, but SCZ exhibited weakened suppression by the perceptual context created by flankers. Late visual (occipital P2) and cognitive (centroparietal P3) neural responses showed group differences and flanker orientation effects, unlike earlier ERPs (occipital P1 and N1). Moreover, behavioral effects of flanker context on contour perception were correlated with modulation in P2/P3 amplitudes.ConclusionIn addition to replicating and extending findings of abnormal contour integration and visual context modulation in SCZ, we provide novel evidence that abnormal use of perceptual context is associated with higher-order sensory and cognitive processes.

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Reduced influence of perceptual context in schizophrenia: behavioral and neurophysiological evidence

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291719003751 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-9 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Victor J. Pokorny ◽

Timothy J. Lano ◽

Michael-Paul Schallmo ◽

Cheryl A. Olman ◽

Scott R. Sponheim

Keyword(s):

Event Related Potentials ◽

Contour Integration ◽

Contour Detection ◽

Group Differences ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Contour Perception ◽

Accurate Perception ◽

Visual Contour ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Intermediate Performance

Abstract Background Accurate perception of visual contours is essential for seeing and differentiating objects in the environment. Both the ability to detect visual contours and the influence of perceptual context created by surrounding stimuli are diminished in people with schizophrenia (SCZ). The central aim of the present study was to better understand the biological underpinnings of impaired contour integration and weakened effects of perceptual context. Additionally, we sought to determine whether visual perceptual abnormalities reflect genetic factors in SCZ and are present in other severe mental disorders. Methods We examined behavioral data and event-related potentials (ERPs) collected during the perception of simple linear contours embedded in similar background stimuli in 27 patients with SCZ, 23 patients with bipolar disorder (BP), 23 first-degree relatives of SCZ, and 37 controls. Results SCZ exhibited impaired visual contour detection while BP exhibited intermediate performance. The orientation of neighboring stimuli (i.e. flankers) relative to the contour modulated perception across all groups, but SCZ exhibited weakened suppression by the perceptual context created by flankers. Late visual (occipital P2) and cognitive (centroparietal P3) neural responses showed group differences and flanker orientation effects, unlike earlier ERPs (occipital P1 and N1). Moreover, behavioral effects of flanker context on contour perception were correlated with modulation in P2 & P3 amplitudes. Conclusion In addition to replicating and extending findings of abnormal contour integration and visual context modulation in SCZ, we provide novel evidence that the abnormal use of perceptual context is associated with higher-order sensory and cognitive processes.

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Frequency Sensitivity of Neural Responses to English Verb Argument Structure Violations

Collabra Psychology ◽

10.1525/collabra.87 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jona Sassenhagen ◽

Ryan Blything ◽

Elena V. M. Lieven ◽

Ben Ambridge

Keyword(s):

Statistical Learning ◽

High Frequency ◽

Argument Structure ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Online Processing ◽

Verb Argument Structure ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Intransitive Verbs

How are verb-argument structure preferences acquired? Children typically receive very little negative evidence, raising the question of how they come to understand the restrictions on grammatical constructions. Statistical learning theories propose stochastic patterns in the input contain sufficient clues. For example, if a verb is very common, but never observed in transitive constructions, this would indicate that transitive usage of that verb is illegal. Ambridge et al. (2008) have shown that in offline grammaticality judgements of intransitive verbs used in transitive constructions, low-frequency verbs elicit higher acceptability ratings than high-frequency verbs, as predicted if relative frequency is a cue during statistical learning. Here, we investigate if the same pattern also emerges in on-line processing of English sentences. EEG was recorded while healthy adults listened to sentences featuring transitive uses of semantically matched verb pairs of differing frequencies. We replicate the finding of higher acceptabilities of transitive uses of low- vs. high-frequency intransitive verbs. Event-Related Potentials indicate a similar result: early electrophysiological signals distinguish between misuse of high- vs low-frequency verbs. This indicates online processing shows a similar sensitivity to frequency as off-line judgements, consistent with a parser that reflects an original acquisition of grammatical constructions via statistical cues. However, the nature of the observed neural responses was not of the expected, or an easily interpretable, form, motivating further work into neural correlates of online processing of syntactic constructions.

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Systematic review of cognitive event related potentials in euthymic bipolar disorder

Clinical Neurophysiology ◽

10.1016/j.clinph.2018.05.025 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 129 (9) ◽

pp. 1854-1865 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Anne M. Morsel ◽

Manuel Morrens ◽

Monica Dhar ◽

Bernard Sabbe

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Cognitive Event

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Auditory event-related potentials, neurocognition, and global functioning in drug naïve first-episode schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291721002130 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Xiaojing Li ◽

Wei Deng ◽

Rui Xue ◽

Qiang Wang ◽

Hongyan Ren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Rating Scale ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

First Episode ◽

Oddball Paradigm ◽

Global Functioning ◽

Adult Intelligence Scale ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Drug Naïve

Abstract Background Deficits in event-related potential (ERP) including duration mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a have been demonstrated widely in chronic schizophrenia (SZ) but inconsistent findings were reported in first-episode patients. Psychotropic medications and diagnosis might contribute to different findings on MMN/P3a ERP in first-episode patients. The present study examined MMN and P3a in first episode drug naïve SZ and bipolar disorder (BPD) patients and explored the relationships among ERPs, neurocognition and global functioning. Methods Twenty SZ, 24 BPD and 49 age and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Data of clinical symptoms [Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS), Young Manic Rating Scale (YMRS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD)], neurocognition [Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CCFT), Delay Matching to Sample (DMS), Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP)], and functioning [Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST)] were collected. P3a and MMN were elicited using a passive auditory oddball paradigm. Results Significant MMN and P3a deficits and impaired neurocognition were found in both SZ and BPD patients. In SZ, MMN was significantly correlated with FAST (r = 0.48) and CCFT (r = −0.31). In BPD, MMN was significantly correlated with DMS (r = −0.54). For P3a, RVP and FAST scores were significant predictors in SZ, whereas RVP, WAIS and FAST were significant predictors in BPD. Conclusions The present study found deficits in MMN, P3a, neurocognition in drug naïve SZ and BPD patients. These deficits appeared to link with levels of higher-order cognition and functioning.

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Risk and Resilience in an Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence From Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of the Reward Positivity

Clinical Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/2167702620917463 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 872-889 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paige Ethridge ◽

Nida Ali ◽

Sarah E. Racine ◽

Jens C. Pruessner ◽

Anna Weinberg

Keyword(s):

Frequency Band ◽

Acute Stress ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Risk And Resilience ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Time Frequency ◽

Reward Positivity ◽

Before And After ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Reward Responsivity

Both abnormal stress and reward responsivity are consistently linked to multiple forms of psychopathology; however, the nature of the associations between stress and reward sensitivity remains poorly understood. In the present study, we examined associations between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis stress response and event-related potentials sensitive to the receipt of reward-related feedback in a pre–post experimental paradigm. Neural responses were recorded while male participants completed a simple monetary-reward guessing task before and after the Montreal Imaging Stress Task. Results demonstrated that acute psychosocial stress significantly reduced the magnitude of neural responses to feedback in the reward-sensitive delta-frequency band but not the loss-sensitive theta-frequency band. In addition, a larger delta-frequency response to rewards at baseline predicted reduced overall cortisol response in the stress condition. These findings suggest, therefore, that neural reward circuitry may be associated with both risk for and resilience to stress-related psychopathology.

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Event-related potential examination of facial affect processing in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291712001006 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 109-117 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

J. K. Wynn ◽

C. Jahshan ◽

L. L. Altshuler ◽

D. C. Glahn ◽

M. F. Green

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Facial Affect ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Facial Features ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Patient Groups ◽

Bipolar Patients ◽

Affect Processing

BackgroundPatients with bipolar disorder exhibit consistent deficits in facial affect identification at both behavioral and neural levels. However, little is known about which stages of facial affect processing are dysfunctional.MethodEvent-related potentials (ERPs), including amplitude and latency, were used to evaluate two stages of facial affect processing: N170 to examine structural encoding of facial features and N250 to examine decoding of facial features in 57 bipolar disorder patients, 30 schizophrenia patients and 30 healthy controls. Three conditions were administered: participants were asked to identify the emotion of a face, the gender of a face, or whether a building was one or two stories tall.ResultsSchizophrenia patients' emotion identification accuracy was lower than that of bipolar patients and healthy controls. N170 amplitude was significantly smaller in schizophrenia patients compared to bipolar patients and healthy controls, which did not differ from each other. Both patient groups had significantly longer N170 latency compared to healthy controls. For N250, both patient groups showed significantly smaller amplitudes compared with controls, but did not differ from each other. Bipolar patients showed longer N250 latency than healthy controls; patient groups did not differ from each other.ConclusionsBipolar disorder patients have relatively intact structural encoding of faces (N170) but are impaired when decoding facial features for complex judgments about faces (N250 latency and amplitude), such as identifying emotion or gender.

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Reduced electroencephalogram responses to standard and target auditory stimuli in bipolar disorder and the impact of psychotic features: Analysis of event-related potentials, spectral power, and inter-trial coherence

Bipolar Disorders ◽

10.1111/bdi.12561 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 49-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Nancy B Lundin ◽

Lisa A Bartolomeo ◽

Brian F O'Donnell ◽

William P Hetrick

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Spectral Power ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Auditory Stimuli ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Psychotic Features ◽

The Impact

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How Social Power Affects the Processing of Angry Expressions: Evidence From Behavioral and Electrophysiological Data

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2020.626522 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

Author(s):

Entao Zhang ◽

Xueling Ma ◽

Ruiwen Tao ◽

Tao Suo ◽

Huang Gu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Low Power ◽

High Power ◽

Late Stage ◽

Social Power ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Oddball Paradigm ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Target Power ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Electroencephalogram Eeg

With the help of event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study used an oddball paradigm to investigate how both individual and target power modulate neural responses to angry expressions. Specifically, participants were assigned into a high-power or low-power condition. Then, they were asked to detect a deviant angry expression from a high-power or low-power target among a series of neutral expressions, while behavioral responses and electroencephalogram (EEG) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that high-power individuals responded faster to detect angry expressions than low-power individuals. The ERP analysis showed that high-power individuals showed larger P3 amplitudes in response to angry expressions than low-power individuals did. Target power increased the amplitudes of the P1, VPP, N3, and P3 in response to angry expressions did, but decreased the amplitudes of the N1 and N170 in response to angry expressions. The present study extended previous studies by showing that having more power could enhance individuals’ neural responses to angry expressions in the late-stage processes, and individuals could show stronger neural responses to angry expressions from high-power persons in both the early‐ and late-stage processes.

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The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0250214 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. e0250214

Author(s):

Julien Plante-Hébert ◽

Victor J. Boucher ◽

Boutheina Jemel

Keyword(s):

Speaker Recognition ◽

Time Window ◽

Speaker Identification ◽

Early Recognition ◽

Voice Recognition ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Speech Stimuli ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Post Onset

Research has repeatedly shown that familiar and unfamiliar voices elicit different neural responses. But it has also been suggested that different neural correlates associate with the feeling of having heard a voice and knowing who the voice represents. The terminology used to designate these varying responses remains vague, creating a degree of confusion in the literature. Additionally, terms serving to designate tasks of voice discrimination, voice recognition, and speaker identification are often inconsistent creating further ambiguities. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to clarify the difference between responses to 1) unknown voices, 2) trained-to-familiar voices as speech stimuli are repeatedly presented, and 3) intimately familiar voices. In an experiment, 13 participants listened to repeated utterances recorded from 12 speakers. Only one of the 12 voices was intimately familiar to a participant, whereas the remaining 11 voices were unfamiliar. The frequency of presentation of these 11 unfamiliar voices varied with only one being frequently presented (the trained-to-familiar voice). ERP analyses revealed different responses for intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices in two distinct time windows (P2 between 200–250 ms and a late positive component, LPC, between 450–850 ms post-onset) with late responses occurring only for intimately familiar voices. The LPC present sustained shifts, and short-time ERP components appear to reflect an early recognition stage. The trained voice equally elicited distinct responses, compared to rarely heard voices, but these occurred in a third time window (N250 between 300–350 ms post-onset). Overall, the timing of responses suggests that the processing of intimately familiar voices operates in two distinct steps of voice recognition, marked by a P2 on right centro-frontal sites, and speaker identification marked by an LPC component. The recognition of frequently heard voices entails an independent recognition process marked by a differential N250. Based on the present results and previous observations, it is proposed that there is a need to distinguish between processes of voice “recognition” and “identification”. The present study also specifies test conditions serving to reveal this distinction in neural responses, one of which bears on the length of speech stimuli given the late responses associated with voice identification.

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