Independent processing of visual stimulus changes in ventral and dorsal stream features indexed by an early positive difference in event-related brain potentials.

In event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of brain activity using a visual S1-S2 matching task, change stimuli elicit a posterior positive component with a latency of 100-200 ms. To elucidate the hierarchical organization of the processing of a visual stimulus change based on multiple stimulus features, ERPs were recorded in 12 participants performing an S1-S2 matching task with stimuli defined by color (mediated by the ventral stream) and motion direction (mediated by the dorsal stream). Each trial consisted of two sequentially presented stimuli (S1-S2), where S2 was either (1) the same as S1 (i.e., no change), (2) different from S1 in color only (color change), (3) different in motion direction only (motion direction change), or (4) different in both color and motion direction (color-motion direction change). These trials were presented in random order with equal probability, and the participants were asked to respond to one of these trials in separate blocks. Relative to the no-change stimulus, the three types of change stimuli elicited posterior positivities. The scalp-topography of change positivities differed according to the feature changed. In addition, the amplitude and scalp-topography of change positivities in response to a conjunction change were the respective sums of those in response to changes in the corresponding single features. These results suggest that the change detection system reflected by the change positivity is separate for each feature dimension, and these operate independently.