Postersession 3
Poster #: 72
Topic: Memory and perception
Friday, Sep 11, 2015
15:30-17:00
1st floor
Fast periodic oddball stimulation in electroencephalography: an objective and sensitive alternative approach to the (v)MMN
Face Categorization Lab, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
bruno.rossion@uclouvain.be
The MMN is a response elicited by a stimulus that does not match the regularity of the environment. In the visual modality at least, this “change detection” component is highly variable across studies and individual participants, and is thus difficult to define objectively and quantify. We present an alternative approach to record neural responses to visual stimulation changes: fast periodic oddball stimulation (FPVS). This approach relies on the periodicity of visual stimulation and the elicited periodic response in the EEG. A stimulation sequence of base stimuli (e.g. picture of face A) is shown at a rapid rate of F Hz and oddball stimuli (e.g. faces B, C…) are introduced every nth base stimuli (F/n Hz, n>2). With complex images, discrimination between base and oddball stimuli is indexed by a periodic EEG response at the F/n Hz oddball frequency and harmonics. FPVS allows the measurement of both fine-grained within-category (e.g. face A vs. face B; Liu-Shuang et al., 2014, Neuropsychologia, 52, 57-72) and coarse between-category (e.g. objects vs. faces, Rossion et al., 2015, Journal of Vision, 15(18), 1-18) differentiation, without trials subtraction. Moreover, periodic responses occur at experimentally-defined frequencies, they are immune from background EEG noise and quantified directly. Thus, reliable data can be acquired in a few minutes of recording only and with minimal attentional/task demands, making FPVS an ideal tool to measure and quantify visual discrimination in different populations (i.e. typical adults, infants, children, patients…).