Citation

Miller MW, Rietschel JC, McDonald CG, Hatfield BD. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 2011; 80(1): 75-78.

Affiliation

Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2011.02.003

PMID

21320552

Abstract

While performing a visuo-motor task under incrementally-varied levels of difficulty, individuals were probed with a variety of novel, task-irrelevant, auditory stimuli. To determine the effect of task load on cerebral-cortical processing of these stimuli, event-related potentials were recorded while participants performed the task. We found that N1, P2, P3 and late positive potential (LPP) component amplitudes were inversely related to task-difficulty. This suggests that a variant of the oddball paradigm--in which the stimulus stream comprises novel sounds--is capable of providing a reliable index of mental workload.

Language: en