N1-P2 Evoked Response as a Measure for Short-Term Visual Memory

We investigate the relationship of N1-P2 evoked response (peak-to-peak amplitude and time interval) with short-term visual memory in humans. Visual evoked responses obtained from 20 subjects (10 non-amnesic alcoholics and 10 non-alcoholics) are extracted from channel P8 referenced to channel Cz during the presentation of modified delayed matching-to-sample visual task using Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set. Our results indicate that N1-P2 amplitudes are higher for non-matching (novel) stimuli as compared to matching stimuli for all the subjects. N1-P2 time interval is also shorter for the case of matching stimuli. This indicates that information processing is increased for the non-matching stimuli as compared to matching stimuli. These results are quite consistent with a number of related studies and we conclude that N1-P2 is related to short-term visual memory involved during object recognition. The results also indicate that N1-P2 amplitude is higher for non-alcoholics as compared to alcoholics, which indicates that some form of memory impairment exist in alcoholics.