TY - JOUR

T1 - Attenuation of visual evoked responses to hand and saccade-initiated flashes

AU - Mifsud, Nathan G.

AU - Beesley, Tom

AU - Watson, Tamara L.

AU - Elijah, Ruth B.

AU - Sharp, Tegan S.

AU - Whitford, Thomas J.

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Cognition. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Cognition, 179, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.005

PY - 2018/10/1

Y1 - 2018/10/1

N2 - Sensory attenuation refers to reduced brain responses to self-initiated sensations relative to those produced by the external world. It is a low-level process that may be linked to higher-level cognitive tasks such as reality monitoring. The phenomenon is often explained by prediction error mechanisms of universal applicability to sensory modality; however, it is most widely reported for auditory stimuli resulting from self-initiated hand movements. The present series of event-related potential (ERP) experiments explored the generalizability of sensory attenuation to the visual domain by exposing participants to flashes initiated by either their own button press or volitional saccade and comparing these conditions to identical, computer-initiated stimuli. The key results showed that the largest reduction of anterior visual N1 amplitude occurred for saccade-initiated flashes, while button press-initiated flashes evoked an intermediary response between the saccade-initiated and externally initiated conditions. This indicates that sensory attenuation occurs for visual stimuli and suggests that the degree of electrophysiological attenuation may relate to the causal likelihood of pairings between the type of motor action and the modality of its sensory response.

AB - Sensory attenuation refers to reduced brain responses to self-initiated sensations relative to those produced by the external world. It is a low-level process that may be linked to higher-level cognitive tasks such as reality monitoring. The phenomenon is often explained by prediction error mechanisms of universal applicability to sensory modality; however, it is most widely reported for auditory stimuli resulting from self-initiated hand movements. The present series of event-related potential (ERP) experiments explored the generalizability of sensory attenuation to the visual domain by exposing participants to flashes initiated by either their own button press or volitional saccade and comparing these conditions to identical, computer-initiated stimuli. The key results showed that the largest reduction of anterior visual N1 amplitude occurred for saccade-initiated flashes, while button press-initiated flashes evoked an intermediary response between the saccade-initiated and externally initiated conditions. This indicates that sensory attenuation occurs for visual stimuli and suggests that the degree of electrophysiological attenuation may relate to the causal likelihood of pairings between the type of motor action and the modality of its sensory response.

KW - Corollary discharge

KW - Efference copy

KW - Event-related potentials

KW - Predictive processing

KW - Saccadic movements

KW - Sensory attenuation

U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.005

DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.005

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85048196466

VL - 179

SP - 14

EP - 22

JO - Cognition

JF - Cognition

SN - 0010-0277

ER -