P300 and anticipated task difficulty

Ullsperger, Peter; Neumann, U.; Gille, H.-G.; M, Pietschmann

doi:10.1016/0167-8760(87)90018-3

Cited by 17 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…One possibility may be increased stimulus and task complexity. The relationship between complexity and P300 amplitude is not a simple one (Ullsperger and Mecklinger, 1996;Ullsperger et al, 1987Ullsperger et al, , 1990Katayama and Polich, 1998;Wintink et al, 2001) and requires further research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Effects of SOA and flash pattern manipulations on ERPs, performance, and preference: Implications for a BCI system

Allison

Pineda

2006

International Journal of Psychophysiology

101

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Effects of SOA and flash pattern manipulations on ERPs, performance, and preference: Implications for a BCI system

Allison

Pineda

2006

International Journal of Psychophysiology

101

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“…For the ERP results, the difference between the altitude groups was also only significant under the high perceptual load condition, with a smaller P3 in the high altitude compared with the low altitude group. Because the P3 component is sensitive to factors that can affect subjects' performance, such as task difficulty, and given that P3 amplitude reflects an evaluation of task difficulty, the greater difficulties experienced by the high altitude group during the high load condition likely reflects a depletion of processing capacity in this group 11,36,50 . Thus, when greater cognitive resources were needed to complete the high perceptual load task, the differences between the altitude groups became more obvious.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Exposure to High Altitude Affects Voluntary Spatial Attention at Early and Late Processing Stages

Wang

et al. 2014

Sci Rep

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The neurocognitive basis of the effect of long-term high altitude exposure on voluntary attention is unclear. Using event related potentials, the high altitude group (people born in low altitude but who had lived at high altitude for 3 years) and the low altitude group (living in low altitude only) were investigated using a voluntary spatial attention discrimination task under high and low perceptual load conditions. The high altitude group responded slower than the low altitude group, while bilateral N1 activity was found only in the high altitude group. The P3 amplitude was smaller in the high altitude compared to the low altitude group only under high perceptual load. These results suggest that long-term exposure to high altitudes causes hemispheric compensation during discrimination processes at early processing stages and reduces attentional resources at late processing stages. In addition, the effect of altitude during the late stage is affected by perceptual load. More than 140 million people live permanently at high altitudes (.2,500 m above sea level) in North, Central, and South America, East Africa, and Asia 1 . As of 2006, approximately 12 million people live permanently on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and 71.14% of them live between 2,500 to 4,500 m. In addition, hundreds of thousands of people travel from lowland China to the Tibetan plateau every year; about 6 million Han lowland immigrants now live there permanently 2,3 . The largest and most important impact of living in a high altitude is hypoxia, which is caused by a reduction of oxygen in the air, and affects cognition. Sustained exposure to high altitude leads to cognitive decrement, such as impairment in attention, memory, judgment, and emotion 4 . Research has demonstrated that cognitive impairment due to altitude starts at 2,500 m above sea level [5][6][7] , because brain vulnerability to hypoxia increases beginning at 2,500 m 8 . Spatial attention may be particularly affected by high altitude exposure. First, the attentional impairment caused by exposure to high altitudes has been found in behavioral tests of visual attention (e.g., the digit symbol substitution test and visual search task) 9,10 , with slowed reaction times at higher altitudes. Second, previous studies have provided neuroimaging and electrophysiological evidence of the impact of high altitude exposure on the human brain [11][12][13] . In the neuroimaging study, brain areas related to attention processing-including the occipital lobe, parietal lobe, sensory-perceptual regions and frontoparietal attentional networks-were found to be affected by high altitude exposure 13,14 . In the electrophysiological study, the parietal distributed P3, which is crucially involved in maintaining attention, was the event-related potential (ERP) component most significantly affected by hypoxia 11,15 . Specifically, smaller and later P3 component responses have been reported for participants at high altitude than in those at the low altitudes, suggesting that cognitive abilities are sensitiv...

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“…The amplitudes of P3 have been found to be larger when the processing load increases (parietal maximum; Poon et al 1976), or when the stimuli to be processed are more complex (vertex maximum; Verbaten et al 1986), purportedly reflecting increasing demands on (limited) processing capacity. In a number of studies, Ullsperger and Neumann (for example, Neumann et al 1986;Ullsperger et al 1987) have shown that the P3 amplitude shows a monotonic increase with increasing internal processing difficulty. This result could not be explained by mental operations necessary for task performance per se, because the task solution took several seconds.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…This result could not be explained by mental operations necessary for task performance per se, because the task solution took several seconds. The authors suggested that P3 indicates task evaluation in the sense of anticipated or rated cognitive effort needed for performance, respectively, needed amount of resources to be allocated (Ullsperger et al 1987). On the other hand, P3 amplitudes have been found to decrease with increasing sensory decoding or perceptual difficulty of the task in terms of discrimination, the physical difference to be detected between signals and non-signals (Kok and Looren de Jong 1980;Polich 1987).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Effects of oxazepam on performance and event-related brain potentials in vigilance tasks with static and dynamic stimuli

et al. 1994

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Eighteen males performed two vigilance tasks with static and dynamic stimuli under the influence of oxazepam (20 and 40 mg) in a placebo-controlled, double blind, crossover design. Oxazepam (40 mg) caused impaired performance in the early part of a task with stimuli inducing frequent saccadic eye movements (dynamic task), relative to a task in which the stimuli remained at the same location (static task). This could not be explained by effects of the drug on oculomotor behavior. A larger diameter of the pupil in the dynamic task indicated that performance on this task may have required more effort. Stimulus processing requirements were higher in the dynamic task, as suggested by event-related brain potentials (ERPs), in particular the P3 wave; i.e., more resources had to be allocated in this task. This (additional) investment of resources appeared impossible after administration of oxazepam (40 mg). The conclusion was that tasks eliciting frequent eye movements require more effort and processing resources.

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P300 and anticipated task difficulty

Cited by 17 publications

References 2 publications

Effects of SOA and flash pattern manipulations on ERPs, performance, and preference: Implications for a BCI system

Effects of SOA and flash pattern manipulations on ERPs, performance, and preference: Implications for a BCI system

Long-Term Exposure to High Altitude Affects Voluntary Spatial Attention at Early and Late Processing Stages

Effects of oxazepam on performance and event-related brain potentials in vigilance tasks with static and dynamic stimuli

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