P300 in patients with unilateral temporal lobectomies: the effects of reduced stimulus quality.

The effects of stimulus quality on the amplitude, peak latency, onset latency, and duration of the P300 component of the event-related brain potential were studied in patients with either a left or a right anterior temporal lobectomy and in normal controls. Stimulus quality was reduced by adding "noise" letters to words which signalled either a left or a right hand button press. Consistent with an interpretation that stimulus quality affects the subject's degree of equivocation, P300 peak latency, reaction time, and errors were all inversely related to stimulus quality, whereas P300 amplitude was directly related to stimulus quality. There were no significant differences between normal controls and either patient group for any of the ERP parameters or reaction time. Right temporal lobectomy patients made, however, significantly more errors, particularly on the catch trials, which suggests that they did not process the stimuli as thoroughly and accurately as the subjects in the other two groups. The absence of significant group differences in either the lateral symmetry or overall P300 amplitude extends the evidence against the idea that anterior temporal lobe structures make any substantial contribution to the scalp P300 in a visual discrimination paradigm. Because of observed delays in the onset of P300 in the low-quality stimulus condition, procedures were developed to quantify both P300 onset latency and P300 duration. Reduced stimulus quality significantly increased P300 onset latency whereas P300 duration remained unaffected, indicating that stimulus categorization must occur prior to, and not during, P300.