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AERs and Detection in Tasks Yielding U‐Shaped Backward Masking Functions
Author(s) -
Schwartz Marvin,
Pritchard Walter S.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1981.tb01842.x
Subject(s) - stimulus onset asynchrony , backward masking , psychology , masking (illustration) , perception , audiology , stimulus (psychology) , psychophysics , monotonic function , function (biology) , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , mathematics , mathematical analysis , medicine , art , visual arts , evolutionary biology , biology
ABSTRACT In backward masking, psychophysical performance varies as a function of the interval between target and mask (stimulus onset asynchrony—SOA). Early studies of averaged evoked responses (AERs) and backward masking suggested a close, monotonic relationship, i.e., increasing psychophysical performance accompanied by increasingly larger AERs as a function of SOA. We asked what would happen to AERs if the perceptual task were designed to produce a U‐shaped performance function, i.e., one in which performance initially decreased and then increased as a function of SOA? In two experiments U‐shaped psychophysical performance was accompanied by monotonic AER functions. In a third experiment, comparing backward and forward masking at comparable SOAs, disparate psychophysical performances were obtained from the same subjects accompanied by similar AERs. Target AERs do not necessarily correlate with a subject's behavioral performance.