title: Event-related potentials to overlapping shapes: effects of saliency and interference.
abstract: Visual perception is often challenged by various difficulties that act concomitantly and whose respective impacts may therefore be hard to distinguish. We used event-related potentials to dissociate the impact of target saliency, generated by occlusion, from that of interference produced by incongruent nontargets. In one block, the target (a square) partially occluded another square tilted by 45 degrees. This nontarget square interfered only to a small extent with target perception. In another block, the target was the occluded stimulus, and interference from the nontarget was substantial. Blocks including two kinds of overlapping shapes (a cross and a square) were added to control for the interference effect. Block comparisons revealed that occlusion modulated an occipital N250 and reaction times. In contrast, interference modulated a parietal N380 but not reaction times.
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. mathieu.brodeur@gmail.com
authors.forename: Mathieu B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Brodeur
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lepore
authors.forename: Benoit A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Bacon
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Renoult
authors.forename: J Bruno
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Debruille
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D055815:Young Adult