The spatiotemporal characteristics of the C1 component and its modulation by attention

ABSTRACT

Slotnick (this issue) provided a selective review of studies on the attentional modulation of the C1 component of the visual evoked potential, and offers a number of guidelines to maximize the likelihood of observing such modulation in terms of electrode choice, stimulus placement, and types of attentional cue and target stimulus. However, the broader literature pertaining to attentional modulation of the C1 does not support many of these guidelines, and the question of why exactly C1 modulations are so rare remains very much open. Here, we provide clarifications that are critical to an accurate appraisal of the current state of this literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Spatial attention
• visual evoked potential
• C1 component
• Cruciform model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Irish Research Council [GOIPG/2016/123].