Evoked Response Correlates of Meaningful Visual Stimuli in Children

Abstract

Photographic slides of familiar objects or cartoons were tachistoscopically presented to a group of 79 normal children (age 5‐11 years) in a study of the evoked response correlates of meaningful visual stimuli. Control stimuli consisted of blank slides or defocused cartoons matched for brightness. A warning flash preceded the slides by 1 sec. EEG and eye movement potentials were recorded on line with a 9.5 sec time constant and averaged off‐line. The principal finding was a vertex negative slow potential peaking about 500 msec after slide presentation which correlated with reports of interest in and recall of both objects and cartoons. Responses in the occipital region changed less consistently with pictorial material, and were the same to the warning flash whether it preceded control or test stimuli. The vertex negative response appears to be a corollary of perceptual integration of meaningful stimuli. Among alternative explanations nonspecific differences in arousal level and/or expectancy appear to be unlikely on the basis of our data. A primary role of edge contrast in generating these late negative responses would not be predicted on the basis of published evidence, but our attempt to control for this alternative yielded equivocal results.

Event-Related Brain Potentials: Comparison Between Children and Adults

“…Neuronal records obtained from the lateral septum are completely consistent with anatomical descriptions of that area as a primary efferent projection site for hippocampal pyramidal cells (1). These results further support an association between hippocampal function and learned behavior (3), as most aspects of hippocampal cellular response correlated with nictitating membrane conditioning are also seen at the level of the lateral septum. On the Although the averaged event-related brain potential (ERP) has been studied in infants and children (1), ERP wave forms with latencies later than 250 to 300 msec have seldom been examined.…”

“…Shelburne (2), studying children aged 8 to 12 years found late positive waves (latency, 450 to 600 msec) in response to the last letter of three-letter words that were presented one letter at a time, tachistoscopically. Symmes and Eisengart (3), however, studying children aged 5 to 11 years, found large negative waves (latency, 520 msec) in response to colorful pictures of cartoon figures and familiar objects such as toothbrushes and keys; they did not report finding P3 waves or any other late positive waves. It is unclear whether the different waves found in these two studies reflect differences in subject populations, tasks, stimuli, or attention or arousal levels.…”

Mismatch Negativity and Late Discriminative Negativity in Investigating Speech Perception and Learning in Children and Infants

“…This frontally dominant negativity has been suggested to be a manifestation of attention to a recently presented stimulus [Courchesne, 1977[Courchesne, , 1978[Courchesne, , 1983Symmes and Eisengart, 1971]. The more deviant, new, or surprising the deviant stimulus is, the larger the Nc amplitude seems to be [Courchesne, 1977[Courchesne, , 1978[Courchesne, , 1983.…”

Developmental Aspects of Event‐Related Potentials

“…Studies of older children have also recorded very long-latency negative and positive waves similar in waveshape to Nc and Pc. Symmes and Eisengart (1971) and Neville (1977) presented slides to children (5-11 years and 9-13 years, respectively). The children were expected to remember these slides (of 32 line drawings from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Neville; and of cartoons and objects-Symmes and Eisengart) and were tested either after each slide (Neville) or after 16 slides (Symmes and Eisengart).…”

“…Nc waves have been related to the perception of meaningful stimuli (Symmes and Eisengart, 1971), the processing of nonverbal information (Neville, 1977), and the perception of attention-getting or interesting events (Courchesne, 1978a(Courchesne, , 1979Courchesne et al, 1981). Pc waves have been related to several processes (Courchesne, 1978a(Courchesne, , 1979 including: ( I ) "The gathering of information to refine existent hypotheses or categorizing schemes or to generate new ones," and (2) the categorizing of events on the basis of their physical, concrete properties.…”