Functionally independent components of early event-related potentials in a visual spatial attention task

Spatial visual attention modulates the first negative-going deflection in the human averaged event-related potential (ERP) in response to visual target and non-target stimuli (the N1 complex). Here we demonstrate a decomposition of N1 into functionally independent subcomponents with functionally distinct relations to cask and stimulus conditions. ERPs were collected from 20 subjects in response to visual target and non-target stimuli presented at five attended and non-attended screen locations. Independent component analysis, a new method for blind source separation, was trained simultaneously on 500 ms grand average responses from all 25 stimulus-attention conditions and decomposed the nontarget N1 complexes into five spatially fixed, temporally independent and physiologically plausible components. Activity of an early laterally symmetrical component pair (N1a(R) and N1a(L)) was evoked by the left and right visual field stimuli, respectively. Component N1a(R) peaked ca. 9 ms earlier than N1a(L). Central stimuli evoked both components with the same peak latency difference, producing a bilateral scalp distribution. The amplitudes of these components were not reliably augmented by spatial attention. Stimuli in the right visual field evoked activity in a spatio-temporally overlapping bilateral component (N1b) chat peaked at ca. 180 ms and was strongly enhanced by attention. Stimuli presented at unattended locations evoked a fourth component (P2a) peaking near 240 ms. A fifth component (P3f) was evoked only by targets presented in either visual field. The distinct response patterns of these components across the array of stimulus and attention conditions suggest that they reflect activity in functionally independent brain systems involved in processing attended and unattended visuospatial events.