Event‐Related Potential Correlates of Two Stages of Information Processing in Physical and Semantic Discrimination Tasks

TLDR

Event‑related potentials were recorded while participants performed physical and semantic discrimination tasks. Two negative ERP components, N A and N2, were identified; N A’s peak latency varied with stimulus complexity while N2 latency tracked N A, indicating sequential stages of pattern recognition and stimulus classification that precede reaction time and P3 responses.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Event‐related potentials were studied while subjects performed physical and semantic discrimination tasks. Two negative components, N A and N2, were observed in both kinds of discriminations. The earlier component, N A , had a constant onset latency, but its peak latency varied as a function of stimulus complexity. N2 latency varied in relation to changes in the peak of N A . RT and P3 followed N2 by similar amounts of time across tasks. The N A and N2 components were interpreted as reflecting partially overlapping sequential stages of processing associated with pattern recognition and stimulus classification, respectively.