Representation of Change Separate Electrophysiological….pdfVIP

Representation of Change: Separate Electrophysiological Markers of Attention, Awareness, and Implicit Processing 1 2,4 3 Diego Fernandez-Duque , Giordana Grossi , Ian M. Thornton , and Helen J. Neville4 Abstract Awareness of change within a visual scene only occurs in subjects were aware of, replicated those attentional effects, but the presence of focused attention. When two versions of a also produced a unique positive deflection in the 350–600 complex scene are presented in alternating sequence sepa- msec window, broadly distributed with its epicenter in medio- rated by a blank mask, unattended changes usually remain central areas. The unique topography and time course of this undetected, although they may be represented implicitly. To latter modulation, together with its dependence on the aware test whether awareness of change and focused attention had perception of change, distinguishes this ‘‘awareness of the same or separable neurophysiological substrates, and to change’’ electrophysiological response from the electrophysio- search for the neural substrates of implicit representation of logical effects of focused attention. Finally, implicit represen- change, we recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) tation of change elicited a distinct electrophysiological event: during a change blindness task. Relative to active search, Unaware changes triggered a positive deflection at the 240– focusing attention in the absence of a change enhanced an ERP 300 msec window, relative to trials with no change. Overall, the component over frontal sites around