Effects of self-evaluation on the P300 event-related potential.
The effects of self evaluation on the P300 event-related potential (ERP) were explored with 56 participants (16 men, 40 women; M age = 23.4 yr., SD = 1.2) across three conditions. The conditions included (1) a standard ERP auditory oddball discrimination between a random target (15% occurrence) and standard stimuli (85% occurrence), (2) the oddball task followed by the additional cognitive task of maintaining a mental count of the target tones, and (3) the oddball task followed by the additional cognitive task of self-evaluating whether they felt surprised by the current occurrence of the target tone. The added cognitive requirements for Conditions 2 and 3 required the subjects to maintain a cognitive readiness for the secondary stimulus-related task during their sensory discrimination response for the standard oddball task. During the self-evaluation condition, the P300 amplitude was significantly larger across all recording locations than the regular oddball condition and the cognitive count condition.
Alexander
Joel E
JE
Psychology Division, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR 97361, USA. alexanj@wou.edu
Alexander
Ronald G
RG
Crowson
Ben
B
Machan
Kelly
K
Hall
Carrie-Ann
CA
Lockwood
Denesa
D
Godinez
Detre
D
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept