Effect of configural distortion on a face-related ERP evoked by random dots blinking

Using random dots blinking (RDB), which reflects the activity of the higher visual area related to face perception, the following stimuli were presented. (1) Upright: a schematic face; (2) Inverted: the Upright stimulus inverted; and (3) Scrambled: the same contour and features as in Upright but with the spatial relation distorted. Clear negative components (N-ERP250) were identified at approximately 250 ms after stimulus onset. At the T5 and T6 electrodes, the peak latency was significantly longer for Inverted and Scrambled than for Upright. At the P4 electrode, the maximum amplitude was significantly larger for Scrambled than for Upright and Inverted. These results indicate that the delayed latency for Inverted and Scrambled reflects the involvement of the additional analytic processing caused by the configural distortion, and that the increase in amplitude for Scrambled indicates the existence of further processing caused by the distortion of the spatial relationship between the contour and features.