P300 ERP Component Depends on Both Spatial Frequency and Contrast

Contrast perception depends on not only the early visual responses, but also top-down modulations. We measured how does P300, a well-documented event-related potential (ERP) index for top-down influence, change with both spatial frequency and contrast. ERP were acquired from 10 participants, aged 18–50 years, when they were performing a visual oddball task. The target was a Gabor patch whose spatial frequency was either 4 or 8 cy/degree and contrasts 90% or 30%. The probability of target presence in a trial was 30%. All target stimuli produced a reliable P300 component. At the low spatial frequency, the amplitude of P300 was larger and the latency was shorter for the low contrast patterns than for the higher contrast ones for all electrodes. Such difference was not observed in high spatial frequency patterns. The latency was slightly longer for high spatial frequency patterns than the low spatial frequency ones. Our results showed an interaction between spatial frequency and contrast in P300. The characteristics of P300 at low spatial frequency correlated with task difficulty, but not at high spatial frequency. This suggests that the top-down influence on contrast perception may be spatial frequency depended.