Distinctive conflict processes associated with different stimulus presentation patterns: an event-related potential study.

Twelve subjects were asked to perform visual stimulus presentation tasks. Two figures were presented either simultaneously or sequentially. They were either in congruity (same shapes) or in conflict (different shapes) with each other. Conflicting stimulus pairs presented sequentially evoked a negative event-related component with a fronto-central and bilateral posterior scalp distribution, referred to as N270. In contrast, stimuli displayed simultaneously elicited a N220 with fronto-central prominence, irrespective of whether they were in conflict or in congruity. The results suggest that the N270 may be associated with the processing of a conflict with working memory information whereas the N220 might reflect the detection and evaluation of attention to visual information in the human brain.