A brain electrophysiological correlate of depth perception

OBJECTIVE: To investigate brain electrical activity accompanying depth perception using random-dot stereograms. Additional experiments were conducted to ascertain the specificity of this potential to depth perception.

METHODS: In the present study, we performed 3 different and independent experiments on 34 subjects to establish the relationship between depth perception and its cortical electrophysiological correlate. Visual evoked potentials in response to visual stimulation by random-dot stereograms were recorded. To achieve this goal, a data acquisition and analysis system, different from common visual evoked potential recording systems, consisting of 2 personal computers, was used. One of the computers was used to generate the visual stimulus patterns and the other to record and digitally average the potentials evoked by the stimuli. This study was carried out at the Department of Biophysics of Ege University Medical School, Izmir, Turkey, from April to December, 2006.

RESULTS: A negative potential component, which is thought to arise in association with depth perception, was recorded from the occipital region from 30 of the 34 subjects. Typically, it had a mean latency of 211.46 ms and 6.40 uV amplitude.

CONCLUSION: The negative potential is related to depth perception, as this component is present in the responses to stimulus, which carries disparity information but is absent when the stimulus is switched to no disparity information. Additional experiments also showed that the specificity of this component to depth perception becomes evident beyond doubt.