Evoked Potential Correlates of Auditory Signal Detection

Hillyard, Steven A.; Squires, Kenneth C.; Bauer, Jay W.; Lindsay, Peter H.

doi:10.1126/science.172.3990.1357

Cited by 391 publications

(219 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Particular attention has been paid to a transient evoked potential called the P3 or P300 (for example, see refs. [19][20][21][22]. Under auditory stimulus conditions analogous to our experiments, the magnitude of the P3 exhibited dependence on trial category similar to what we have observed with fMRI 19,20 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Neuronal correlates of perception in early visual cortex

2003

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We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in human early visual cortex (areas V1, V2 and V3) during a challenging contrast-detection task. Subjects attempted to detect the presence of slight contrast increments added to two kinds of background patterns. Behavioral responses were recorded so that the corresponding cortical activity could be grouped into the usual signal detection categories: hits, false alarms, misses and correct rejects. For both kinds of background patterns, the measured cortical activity was retinotopically specific. Hits and false alarms were associated with significantly more cortical activity than were correct rejects and misses. That false alarms evoked more activity than misses indicates that activity in early visual cortex corresponded to the subjects' percepts, rather than to the physically presented stimulus.For more than 30 years, psychophysical studies of visual pattern discrimination have paralleled research on the neurophysiological response properties of neurons in the visual cortex 1,2 . The prevailing view has been that psychophysical judgments about visual patterns are limited by neuronal signals in early visual cortical areas (such as primary visual cortex, V1). Signal detection theory has provided a theoretical framework for linking psychophysics and physiology. One testable property of this class of models of human pattern vision is that activity in early visual cortex should correspond to the subjects' percepts, even when those percepts are inaccurate.The relationship between psychophysics and neurophysiology, as predicted by signal detection theory, can be studied using a contrast detection task (Fig. 1). On each trial, subjects were presented with one of two stimuli, either a background pattern presented alone or the same background with a low-contrast target pattern superimposed on it. Subjects pressed a button to indicate whether they believed the target was present or absent. Logically, there are four possible outcomes on a given trial: hits, when the observer correctly responds 'yes' on a targetpresent trial; correct rejects, when the observer correctly responds 'no' on a target-absent trial; false alarms, when the observer erroneously responds 'yes' on a target-absent trial; and misses, when the observer erroneously responds 'no' on a target-present trial. Because nearly all neurons in early visual cortex increase their activity monotonically with contrast 2-4 , targetpresent stimuli will, on average, evoke slightly greater neuronal activity than will target-absent stimuli. Neuronal responses vary, however, from one trial to the next, even when physically identical stimuli are presented repeatedly 4-7 . This variability in neuronal responses implies that a target-present stimulus can sometimes evoke less activity than a target-absent stimulus (Fig. 1, overlap between the two probability distributions). According to a simple model of the NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript decision process, ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Neuronal correlates of perception in early visual cortex

2003

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“…Some might consider this paradigm as suboptimal in the present investigation. We would note, however, that the MMN is indeed reliably elicited under both active and passive listening conditions (eg Näätänen et al, 1978;Ritter et al, 1992) and that later components such as N200/P300 are only observed during active paradigms and furthermore may not be a pure index of sensory discrimination abilities (Hillyard et al, 1971). Such things being said, it will clearly be worthwhile for future investigations to examine the MMN under passive conditions as well as when target stimuli are either closer to the deviant's frequency and/or vary in their duration; the latter being a well-established means of dissociating effects specific to the N1 component from those specific to MMN generation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Glutathione Precursor, N-Acetyl-Cysteine, Improves Mismatch Negativity in Schizophrenia Patients

Lavoie

Murray

Deppen

et al. 2007

Neuropsychopharmacol

326

222

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In schizophrenia patients, glutathione dysregulation at the gene, protein and functional levels, leads to N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor hypofunction. These patients also exhibit deficits in auditory sensory processing that manifests as impaired mismatch negativity (MMN), which is an auditory evoked potential (AEP) component related to NMDA receptor function. N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), a glutathione precursor, was administered to patients to determine whether increased levels of brain glutathione would improve MMN and by extension NMDA function. A randomized, double-blind, cross-over protocol was conducted, entailing the administration of NAC (2g/day) for 60 days and then placebo for another 60 days (or vice versa). 128-channel AEPs were recorded during a frequency oddball discrimination task at protocol onset, at the point of cross-over, and at the end of the study. At the onset of the protocol, the MMN of patients was significantly impaired compared to sex-and age-matched healthy controls (p ¼ 0.003), without any evidence of concomitant P300 component deficits. Treatment with NAC significantly improved MMN generation compared with placebo (p ¼ 0.025) without any measurable effects on the P300 component. MMN improvement was observed in the absence of robust changes in assessments of clinical severity, though the latter was observed in a larger and more prolonged clinical study. This pattern suggests that MMN enhancement may precede changes to indices of clinical severity, highlighting the possible utility AEPs as a biomarker of treatment efficacy. The improvement of this functional marker may indicate an important pathway towards new therapeutic strategies that target glutathione dysregulation in schizophrenia.

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“…For instance, research using stimulus recognition tasks revealed that reported confidence in recognition is associated with increased P3 amplitudes [28]. Furthermore, attentional blink studies demonstrate that the P3 amplitude systematically varied with conscious recognition [17].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective Prime and Target Picture Processing: An ERP Analysis of Early and Late Interference Effects

2008

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Viewing emotionally arousing compared to neutral pictures is associated with differential electrophysiological activity in early (''early posterior negativity'', EPN), as well as later time-windows (''late positive potential'', LPP). A previous study revealed that the EPN is reduced when the preceding prime picture was emotional. The present study explored whether sequential interference effects are specific for early processing stages or extend to later processing stages. Dense sensor ERPs were measured while subjects viewed a continuous stream of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures, presented for 660 ms each. Previous results were replicated in that emotional pictures were associated with enlarged EPN and LPP amplitudes compared to neutral pictures. Furthermore, the EPN to emotional and neutral pictures was reduced when preceded by pleasant prime pictures. The novel finding was that emotional compared to neutral prime pictures were associated with reduced LPP amplitudes to the subsequently presented picture irrespective of its emotional valence (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant). These results demonstrate sustained interference effects in serial picture presentations discussed within a framework of resource competition among successive pictures.

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Evoked Potential Correlates of Auditory Signal Detection

Cited by 391 publications

References 21 publications

Neuronal correlates of perception in early visual cortex

Neuronal correlates of perception in early visual cortex

Glutathione Precursor, N-Acetyl-Cysteine, Improves Mismatch Negativity in Schizophrenia Patients

Affective Prime and Target Picture Processing: An ERP Analysis of Early and Late Interference Effects

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