Pictorial Cognitive Task Resolution and Dynamics of Event-Related Potentials

Abstract

Aims:To judge whether and how the character of the visual stimulus and type of cognitive task aff ects brain eventrelated potentials (ERPs).Methods: ERPs to three types of visual stimuli (white blank oval on a dark background, unfolded cube and net of sixteen small squares) were recorded from nine scalp sites and saved on a computer. Special software was used for off -line analysis of the ERPs.Results: The presentation of each of the three visual stimuli used was followed by ERPs consisting of two negative (N160, N340) and one positive (P220) components. The character of the stimulus did not aff ect the latency of ERPs components. However, the type of visual stimuli aff ected the amplitude. The most conspicuous changes were shown by the N340 ERPs component. Its average amplitude in comparison with reference amplitude was always significantly higher during the fi rst cognitive task ("Choose the cube that can be folded up from the unfolded cube!") and signifi cantly lower than reference amplitude during the second cognitive task ("Complete the missing part of a fi gure with the appropriate item!"). It was also shown that subjective personality traits such as nervousness, spontaneous aggressivity and emotional lability had an infl uence on the recovery phase of the experiment aff ecting the average amplitude of N340 Conclusion: The results revealed that the cognitive processes underlying successful resolution of two pictorial cognitive tasks aff ected diff erently the activity of systems giving rise to visual ERPs.

Pictorial cognitive task solving and dynamics of event - related desynchronization

“…This assumption is supported by our earlier findings 14,15 as well as by the dynamics of average FM pertinent to cognitive task solving described in the present paper; the average FM calculated for each of EEG records including P3 and P4 significantly decreased during the mental load related to solving each of two cognitive tasks.…”

“…The experimental paradigm, procedures, features of visual stimuli and method of data acquisition were described in detail in our recent paper 15 . Here only the principles of the data analysis are described.…”

Effect of iron deficiency on simultaneous measures of behavior, brain activity, and energy expenditure in the performance of a cognitive task

“…Much of the literature on the relationships between cognitive demands and metabolic measures of work have been hampered by manipulations that produce rather small changes in performance. [47][48][49] In closing, we have shown that it is possible to characterize the relationships among cognitive demands, neural activity, and energy expended in the context of variations in iron status. Critically, we have shown that two distinct aspects of iron status-as indexed by sFt and Hb-play two distinct roles in these relationships.…”

The Neural efficiency score: Validation and application

“…The first and most obvious is that the finding of a positive relationship between metabolic energy expended and GFP needs to be replicated. Of concern here is the fact that we used large variations in workload-much larger than those used in earlier studies of the effect of cognitive workload on metabolic measures (Garde, Laursen, Jørgensen, & Jensen, 2002;Petrek, 2008Petrek, , 2009. It may be that the positive relationship that we obtained is only observable at high levels of demand.…”