Electrocortical signs of word categorization in saccade-related brain potentials and visual evoked potentials

Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) elicited by foveal presentation of words were compared to brain potentials evoked by the same words in a condition where subjects had to make a saccadic eye movement in order to perceive the words (saccade-related brain potentials, SRPs). Subjects had to categorize the words responding with a button press to stimuli belonging to the target (infrequent, P = 0.2) category. The VEP and SRP waveforms showed divergences in the early (up to 250 ms) components, but a marked similarity between the late components. Principal Component Analysis also revealed the same relationship between the two types of brain responses. Peak latency of the late SRP components measured from saccade offset showed an apparent processing advantage over the corresponding late components of VEPs. The N3 component, indexing semantic processing of visual patterns, peaked between 310 and 375 ms in the SRPs, while in the VEPs it appeared between 410 and 470 ms. The P4 component, associated with final stimulus evaluation, showed a similar latency benefit in favour of SRPs (420-500 ms vs 530-590 ms in VEPs). The mean reaction time was 74 ms shorter in the eye movement condition (measured from saccade offset) than in the VEP condition (703 vs 777 ms). The question of what kind of processes may contribute to the differences in mean RTs and to the latencies of the late components between the two conditions are discussed. We suggest that the late components (P3, N3 and P4) of the VEP and the SRP, respectively, index identical brain processes.