The signature of undetected change: an exploratory electrotomographic investigation of gradual change blindness

Neuroimaging based investigations of change blindness, a phenomenon in which seemingly obvious changes in visual scenes fail to be detected, have significantly advanced our understanding of visual awareness. The vast majority of prior investigations, however, utilize paradigms involving visual disruptions (e.g. intervening blank screens, saccadic movements, "mudsplashes"), making it difficult to cleanly isolate neural responses towards undetected visual changes. To address this issue in this present study, high-density EEG data (256 channel) was collected from 25 participants using a paradigm in which visual changes were progressively introduced into detailed real-world scenes without the use of visual disruption. Oscillatory activity associated with undetected changes was contrasted with activity linked to their absence using standardized Low Resolution brain Electromagnetic Tomography (sLORETA). Increased beta-2 activity in the right inferior parietal lobule (rIPL), a region repeatedly associated with c...