The power spectra of visually evoked potentials to pseudorandom contrast reversals of gratings

Visually evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded in response to the temporal pseudorandom contrast reversal of spatially sinusoidal gratings with different spatial frequencies. The stimulus mimicked bandwidth limited white noise in the temporal domain except for an inherent periodicity which permitted signal averaging. The power spectra of the resulting VEPs were calculated. For high spatial frequency gratings (7.5-15 c/degree) VEP power was localized to the temporal frequency range from 3 to 7 Hz. For medium spatial frequency gratings (0.75-3 c/degree) VEP power was distributed in a roughly bimodal way with peaks near 6 and 18 Hz. The VEP power spectra due to high frequency gratings were similar in 2 subjects studied in detail, but the power spectra to medium frequency gratings differed substantially.