Visual event related potentials modulated by contextually relevant and irrelevant olfactory primes

Visual evoked potentials were recorded from 16 scalp locations on 10 young subjects during presentation of a series of high-quality photographs on a computer screen. The photographs consisted of equal numbers of pictures of fruit (citrus and non-citrus fruits), flowers (roses and other flowers) and objects (e.g. buildings, vehicles, animals etc.). Every picture was different in order to avoid repetition effects. The pictures were presented under four odour conditions: no odour, rose odour, jasmine odour and citrus odour. In order to keep the subjects alert they were asked to make categorizing decisions for the visual stimuli (e.g. flower or fruit). No decision was required concerning the relationship between the visual stimulus and the odour. As expected, the N400 peak was more negative when the picture stimulus did not match the odour. It is hypothesized that the N400 peak can be used as a measure of relatedness of a sensory stimulus to a previous or on-going prime, irrespective of the mode of the stimuli.