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Looking for a face in the crowd: Fixation-related potentials in an eye-movement visual search task

Kaunitz, Lisandro N.; Kamienkowski, Juan E.; Varatharajah, Alexander; Sigman, Mariano; Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo; Ison, Matias J.

Authors

Lisandro N. Kaunitz

Juan E. Kamienkowski

Alexander Varatharajah

Mariano Sigman

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga



Abstract

Despite the compelling contribution of the study of event related potentials (ERPs) and eye movements to cognitive neuroscience, these two approaches have largely evolved independently. We designed an eye-movement visual search paradigm that allowed us to concurrently record EEG and eye movements while subjects were asked to find a hidden target face in a crowded scene with distractor faces. Fixation event-related potentials (fERPs) to target and distractor stimuli showed the emergence of robust sensory components associated with the perception of stimuli and cognitive components associated with the detection of target faces. We compared those components with the ones obtained in a control task at fixation: qualitative similarities as well as differences in terms of scalp topography and latency emerged between the two. By using single trial analyses, fixations to target and distractors could be decoded from the EEG signals above chance level in 11 out of 12 subjects. Our results show that EEG signatures related to cognitive behavior develop across spatially unconstrained exploration of natural scenes and provide a first step towards understanding the mechanisms of target detection during natural search. © 2013 The Authors.

Citation

Kaunitz, L. N., Kamienkowski, J. E., Varatharajah, A., Sigman, M., Quian Quiroga, R., & Ison, M. J. (2014). Looking for a face in the crowd: Fixation-related potentials in an eye-movement visual search task. NeuroImage, 89, 297-305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.12.006

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 6, 2013
Online Publication Date Dec 14, 2013
Publication Date Apr 1, 2014
Deposit Date Sep 13, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal NeuroImage
Print ISSN 1053-8119
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 89
Pages 297-305
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.12.006
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1116790
Publisher URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381191301210X?via%3Dihub

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