Limits of Event-related Potential Differences in Tracking Object Processing Speed

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1241-1258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume A. Rousselet ◽  
Marc J.-M. Macé ◽  
Simon J. Thorpe ◽  
Michéle Fabre-Thorpe

We report results from two experiments in which subjects had to categorize briefly presented upright or inverted natural scenes. In the first experiment, subjects decided whether images contained animals or human faces presented at different scales. Behavioral results showed virtually identical processing speed between the two categories and very limited effects of inversion. One type of event-related potential (ERP) comparison, potentially capturing low-level physical differences, showed large effects with onsets at about 150 msec in the animal task. However, in the human face task, those differences started as early as 100 msec. In the second experiment, subjects responded to close-up views of animal faces or human faces in an attempt to limit physical differences between image sets. This manipulation almost completely eliminated small differences before 100 msec in both tasks. But again, despite very similar behavioral performances and short reaction times in both tasks, human faces were associated with earlier ERP differences compared with animal faces. Finally, in both experiments, as an alternative way to determine processing speed, we compared the ERP with the same images when seen as targets and nontargets in different tasks. Surprisingly, all task-dependent ERP differences had relatively long latencies. We conclude that task-dependent ERP differences fail to capture object processing speed, at least for some categories like faces. We discuss models of object processing that might explain our results, as well as alternative approaches.

Neuroreport ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (17) ◽  
pp. 2607-2611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume A. Rousselet ◽  
Marc J-M. Macé ◽  
Michèle Fabre-Thorpe

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 845-854
Author(s):  
Nicholas Fallon ◽  
Timo Giesbrecht ◽  
Anna Thomas ◽  
Andrej Stancak

Abstract Congruent visual cues augment sensitivity to brief olfactory presentations and habituation of odor perception is modulated by central-cognitive processing including context. However, it is not known whether habituation to odors could interact with cross-modal congruent stimuli. The present research investigated the effect of visual congruence on odor detection sensitivity during continuous odor exposures. We utilized a multimethod approach, including subjective behavioral responses and reaction times (RTs; study 1) and electroencephalography (EEG, study 2). Study 1: 25 participants received 2-min presentations of moderate-intensity floral odor delivered via olfactometer with congruent (flower) and incongruent (object) image presentations. Participants indicated odor perception after each image. Detection sensitivity and RTs were analyzed in epochs covering the period of habituation. Study 2: 25 new participants underwent EEG recordings during 145-s blocks of odor presentations with congruent or incongruent images. Participants passively observed images and intermittently rated the perceived intensity of odor. Event-related potential analysis was utilized to evaluate brain processing related to odor–visual pairs across the period of habituation. Odor detection sensitivity and RTs were improved by congruent visual cues. Results highlighted a diminishing influence of visual congruence on odor detection sensitivity as habituation occurred. Event-related potential analysis revealed an effect of congruency on electrophysiological processing in the N400 component. This was only evident in early periods of odor exposure when perception was strong. For the first time, this demonstrates the modulation of central processing of odor–visual pairs by habituation. Frontal negativity (N400) responses encode the aspects of cross-modal congruence for odor–vision cross-modal tasks.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria L Bringas Vega ◽  
Shengnan Liu ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Ivonne Pedroso Ibañez ◽  
Lilia M. Morales Chacon ◽  
...  

AbstractWe used EEG source analysis to identify which cortical areas were involved in the automatic and controlled processes of inhibitory control on a flanker task and compared the potential efficacy of recombinant-human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) on the performance of Parkinson’ s Disease patients.The samples were 18 medicated PD patients (nine of them received rHuEPO in addition to their usual anti-PD medication through random allocation and the other nine patients were on their regular anti-PD medication only) and 9 age and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) who completed the flanker task with simultaneous EEG recordings. N1 and N2 event-related potential (ERP) components were identified and a low-resolution tomography (LORETA) inverse solution was employed to localize the neural generators.Reaction times and errors were increased for the incongruent flankers for PD patients compared to controls. EEG source analysis identified an effect of rHuEPO on the lingual gyri for the early N1 component. N2-related sources in middle cingulate and precuneus were associated with the inhibition of automatic responses evoked by incongruent stimuli differentiated PD and HCs.From our results rHuEPO, seems to mediate an effect on N1 sources in lingual gyri but not on behavioural performance. N2-related sources in middle cingulate and precuneus evoked by incongruent stimuli differentiated PD and HCs.


10.1167/4.1.2 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Rousselet ◽  
M. J.-M. Mace ◽  
M. Fabre-Thorpe
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S63-S63
Author(s):  
Ya Wang ◽  
Lu-xia Jia ◽  
Xiao-jing Qin ◽  
Jun-yan Ye ◽  
Raymond Chan

Abstract Background Schizotypy, a subclinical group at risk for schizophrenia, have been found to show impairments in response inhibition. Recent studies differentiated proactive inhibition (a preparatory process before the stimuli appears) and reactive inhibition (the inhibition of a pre-potent or already initiated response). However, it remains unclear whether both proactive and reactive inhibition are impaired in schizotypy and what are the neural mechanisms. The present event-related potential study used an adapted stop-signal task to examine the two inhibition processes and the underlying neural mechanisms in schizotypy compared to healthy controls (HC). Methods A total of 21 individuals with schizotypy and 25 matched HC participated in this study. To explore different degrees of proactive inhibition, we set three conditions: a “certain” go condition which no stop signal occurred, a “17% no go” condition in which stop signal would appear in 17% of trials, and a “33% no go” condition in which stop signal would appear in 33% of trials. All participants completed all the conditions, and EEG was recorded when participants completed the task. Results Behavioral results showed that in both schizotypy and HC, the reaction times (RT) of go trials were significantly prolonged as the no go percentage increased, and HC showed significantly longer go RT compared with schizotypy in both “17% no go” and “33% no go” conditions, suggesting greater proactive inhibition in HC. Stop signal reaction times (SSRTs) in “33% no go” condition was shorter than “17% no go” condition in both groups. Schizotypy showed significantly longer SSRTs in both “17% no go” and “33% no go” conditions than HC, indicating schizotypy relied more on reactive inhibition. ERP results showed that schizotypy showed larger overall N1 for go trials than HC irrespective of condition, which may indicate a compensation process in schizotypy. Schizotypy showed smaller N2 on both successful and unsuccessful stop trials in “17% no go” conditions than HC, while no group difference was found in “33% no go” conditions for stop trials, which may indicate impaired error processing. Discussion These results suggested that schizotypy tended to be impaired in both proactive control and reactive control processes.


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Gierych ◽  
RafaŽ Milner ◽  
Andrzej Michalski

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to search for event-related potential (ERP) correlates of processing pictures commonly described as “funny” but not preceded by the apparent “context-setting” phase. Three pairs of stimuli were used: (1) famous cartoon characters and images of household objects, (2) pictures reminiscent of a recently seen joke and similar pictures that did not produce such associations, (3) funny caricatures and drawings of neutral human faces. ERP differences in each pair were analyzed in two experiments. In the first experiment, both stimuli were targets in an “oddball” procedure, presented among the more frequent green disks. In the second experiment, they were both nontargets whereas the green disks were task-relevant. Both experiments and all pairs of stimuli produced similar results. ERPs for funny pictures were consistently more positive within the broad latency windows, resembling the effects of emotional arousal. Negative deflections, typical for incongruity processing, were not found. Such results indicated that these types of “humorous” images belonged to the class of affective stimuli that produced attentional reallocation of processing resources. The cognitive phase during which incongruity is detected and resolved was probably reduced to minimum or even absent.


2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1224-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. Rutman ◽  
Wesley C. Clapp ◽  
James Z. Chadick ◽  
Adam Gazzaley

Selective attention confers a behavioral benefit on both perceptual and working memory (WM) performance, often attributed to top–down modulation of sensory neural processing. However, the direct relationship between early activity modulation in sensory cortices during selective encoding and subsequent WM performance has not been established. To explore the influence of selective attention on WM recognition, we used electroencephalography to study the temporal dynamics of top–down modulation in a selective, delayed-recognition paradigm. Participants were presented with overlapped, “double-exposed” images of faces and natural scenes, and were instructed to either remember the face or the scene while simultaneously ignoring the other stimulus. Here, we present evidence that the degree to which participants modulate the early P100 (97–129 msec) event-related potential during selective stimulus encoding significantly correlates with their subsequent WM recognition. These results contribute to our evolving understanding of the mechanistic overlap between attention and memory.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 1219-1233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela de Bruin ◽  
Sergio Della Sala

Older adults have been argued to have impoverished inhibitory control compared to younger adults. However, these effects of age may depend on processing speed and their manifestation may furthermore depend on the type of inhibitory control task that is used. We present two experiments that examine age effects on inhibition across three tasks: a Simon arrow, static flanker and motion flanker task. The results showed overall slower reaction times (RTs) for older adults on all three tasks. However, effects of age on inhibition costs were only found for the Simon task, but not for the two flanker tasks. The motion flanker task furthermore showed an effect of baseline processing speed on the relation between age and inhibition costs. Older adults with slower baseline responses showed smaller inhibition costs, suggesting they were affected less by the flanker items than faster older adults. These findings suggest that effects of age on inhibition are task dependent and can be modulated by task-specific features such as the type of interference, type of stimuli and processing speed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1482-1489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilia Korjoukov ◽  
Danique Jeurissen ◽  
Niels A. Kloosterman ◽  
Josine E. Verhoeven ◽  
H. Steven Scholte ◽  
...  

Visual perception starts with localized filters that subdivide the image into fragments that undergo separate analyses. The visual system has to reconstruct objects by grouping image fragments that belong to the same object. A widely held view is that perceptual grouping occurs in parallel across the visual scene and without attention. To test this idea, we measured the speed of grouping in pictures of animals and vehicles. In a classification task, these pictures were categorized efficiently. In an image-parsing task, participants reported whether two cues fell on the same or different objects, and we measured reaction times. Despite the participants’ fast object classification, perceptual grouping required more time if the distance between cues was larger, and we observed an additional delay when the cues fell on different parts of a single object. Parsing was also slower for inverted than for upright objects. These results imply that perception starts with rapid object classification and that rapid classification is followed by a serial perceptual grouping phase, which is more efficient for objects in a familiar orientation than for objects in an unfamiliar orientation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 1318-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian C. Gould ◽  
Matthew F. Rushworth ◽  
Anna C. Nobre

Lateralization in the desynchronization of anticipatory occipitoparietal alpha (8–12 Hz) oscillations has been implicated in the allocation of selective visuospatial attention. Previous studies have demonstrated that small changes in the lateralization of alpha-band activity are predictive of behavioral performance but have not directly investigated how flexibly alpha lateralization is linked to top-down attentional goals. To address this question, we presented participants with cues providing varying degrees of spatial certainty about the location at which a target would appear. Time-frequency analysis of EEG data demonstrated that manipulating spatial certainty led to graded changes in the extent to which alpha oscillations were lateralized over the occipitoparietal cortex during the cue-target interval. We found that individual differences in alpha desynchronization contralateral to attention predicted reaction times, event-related potential measures of perceptual processing of targets, and beta-band (15–25 Hz) activity typically associated with response preparation. These results support the hypothesis that anticipatory alpha modulation is a plausible neural mechanism underlying the allocation of visuospatial attention and is under flexible top-down control.


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