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 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.
Minami
Tetsuto
T
Intelligent Sensing System Research Center, Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan. adrian.williams@brunel.ac.uk
Goto
Kimiko
K
Kitazaki
Michiteru
M
Nakauchi
Shigeki
S
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult