Summary
An economical method of computing the source densities underlying human scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) is used to investigate the topography of “evaluation potentials” elicited when a subject assesses the outcome of a goal-directed activity. No sign of a generative focus was observed in frontal locations; but lateral placements over temporal and parietal lobes revealed an inversion of polarity of the evaluation potential suggesting the involvement of those regions in its computation. Experiments using auditory feedback of outcome, instead of or together with visual, showed no qualitative dependence of the main phenomena on the modality of feedback.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Galambos R, Hillyard SA (1981) Electrophysiological approaches to human cognitive processing. Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin, vol 20. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass
Hillyard SA, Courchesne E, Krausz HI, Picton TW (1976) Scalp topography of the “P3” wave in different auditory decision tasks. In: McCallum WC, Knott JR (eds) The responsive brain. Wright, Bristol, pp 81–87
MacKay DM (1984a) On-line source-density computation with a minimum of electrodes. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol
MacKay DM (1984b) Source-density analysis of scalp potentials during evaluated action, I. Coronal distribution. Exp Brain Res 54: 73–85
Mountcastle VB, Andersen RA, Motter BC (1981) The influence of attentive fixation upon the excitability of the light sensitive neurons of the posterior parietal cortex. J Neurosci 1: 1218–1235
Nielson D, Teas D, Idzikowski R (1970) Variation in cortical evoked responses as a function of performance criterion. Percept Psychophys 8: 29–32
Papakostopoulos D (1980) A no-stimulus, no-response, event-related potential of the human cortex. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 48: 622–638
Picton T, Low M (1971) The CNV and semantic content of stimuli in the experimental paradigm: Effects of feedback. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 31: 451–456
Ritter W, Simson R, Vaughan HG (1979) Topographic analysis of task-related cerebral potentials. In: Desmedt JE (ed) Cognitive components in cerebral event-related potentials and selective attention. Prog Clin Neurophysiol 6: 132–139
Squires KC, Hillyard SA, Lindsay PH (1973) Cortical potentials evoked by confirming and disconfirming feedback following an auditory discrimination. Percept Psychophys 13: 25–31
Tueting P, Sutton S, Zubin J (1971) Quantitative evoked potential correlates of the probability of events. Psychophysiology 7: 385–394
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
MacKay, D.M. Source density analysis of scalp potentials during evaluated action II. Lateral distributions. Exp Brain Res 54, 86–94 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00235821
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00235821