Asymmetry of P3 amplitude during oddball tasks reflects the unnaturalness of visual stimuli

This study examined the relationship between the 'naturalness' of a visual stimulus and the event-related potentials measured during an oddball task. The study focused on asymmetry of the P3 amplitude during an oddball task or P3 asymmetry. Participants performed two visual oddball tasks u...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNeuroreport Vol. 20; no. 16; p. 1471
Main Authors Minami, Tetsuto, Goto, Kimiko, Kitazaki, Michiteru, Nakauchi, Shigeki
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England 28.10.2009
Subjects
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Electroencephalography - methods
Event-Related Potentials, P300 - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Memory - physiology
Neuropsychological Tests
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Young Adult
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Summary:This study examined the relationship between the 'naturalness' of a visual stimulus and the event-related potentials measured during an oddball task. The study focused on asymmetry of the P3 amplitude during an oddball task or P3 asymmetry. Participants performed two visual oddball tasks using a pair of stimuli (A and B): one in which A was the target stimulus and B was the standard stimulus and vice versa. The stimuli consisted of natural-unnatural pairs of visual stimuli (e.g. upright-inverted faces, possible-impossible human poses). As a result of comparing the amplitudes of the target stimuli, P3 asymmetry was found in natural-unnatural pairs; that is, their naturalness differentiated the target P3 amplitude: larger P3 to the unnatural target than to the natural one. This study showed that P3 asymmetry reflected unnaturalness and unfamiliarity of visual stimuli.
ISSN:1473-558X
DOI:10.1097/WNR.0b013e3283321cfb