Modulation of early ERP components with peripheral precues: a trend analysis

In the visual domain, involuntary allocation of attentional resources can be induced by using peripheral cues. An enlargement of the P1 ERP-component has been reported in connection with voluntary allocation of resources induced by symbolic cues, but until recently, it has not been reported in connection with involuntary allocation of resources. However, involuntary allocation of resources was only investigated with long cue-target intervals (SOAs) of about 600 ms. Therefore, an experiment was conducted with SOAs between 100 and 300 ms. After a 100% valid peripheral cue a bilateral multi-item array was presented. Trend analyses, which were employed to estimate the ERP elicited by the array corrected for linear and nonlinear contribution of the cue, showed a contralateral enhancement for the posterior P150 and the N230 component. Hence, involuntary allocation of resources with short SOAs might invoke the same level as voluntary allocation of resources. The P150 enhancement may be interpreted as a reflection of allocated resources at a specific location, whereas the N230 enhancement might reflect elaborated processing at the contralateral hemisphere.