Retinal, Cortical and Motor Responses to Photic Stimulation in Man: Retino-Cortical Time and Opto-Motor Integration Time

Evoked Responses in Relation to Visual Perception and Oculomotor Reaction Times in Man*

“…The form of the parieto-occipital evoked response to bright flashes of light, with eyes closed, which has been found in these experiments is, in form and latency, much the same as those that have been previously described (Barlow, 1960;Barlow and Brazier, 1957;Brazier, 1958;Ciganek, 1958n, 195821, 1961aCiganek, 1958n, 195821, , 1961bContamin and Cathala, 1961;Monnier, 1952;Van Hof, 1960;Vanzulli et al, 1960). The possibility that certain of the components of the occipital response to photic stimulation might arise from muscle artifact ( Bickford, Galbraith, and Jacobson, 1962; has not been specifically examined in the present series of experiments.…”

Reaction time and EEG activation under alerted and nonalerted conditions.

“…The first two of these are relatively stable and fixed, and subject only to small reductions; the latter appears to be the main source of the reduction in over-all reaction time. Input time, according to Monnier (1952) and Lindsley and Emmons (1958), measured from the incidence of a flash of light upon the eye to the beginning of an evoked potential over the visual cortex, amounts to about 35 msec. Output time, including about 15-20 msec, for transmission from motor cortex to the executant muscle and perhaps 10-20 msec, for muscle shortening, would be no more than 40 msec, over all.…”

The Effect of an After-coming Random Pattern on the Perception of Brief Visual Stimuli

“…Bernhard (I940), by simultaneous recording of electroretinogram and electroencephalogram in man, showed that the more intense the stimulus, the sooner is electrical change detectable in both retina and cortex. The decreased latency with more intense stimulation is chiefly due to decrease in retinal delay, but to a lesser extent "post-retinal" processes are also accelerated (Monnier, 1952). PiCron (1925) regarded interference by the aftercoming more intense stimulus as entirely due to the shorter latency of the latter.…”