Visual evoked cortical potentials (VECP) are useful the investigation of color vision mechanisms and color vision dysfunctions. Chromatic sinusoidal gratings are generally used to elicit VECP, but they require long psychophysical measurements to match the perceptual brightness between their stripes. An alternative is to replace them by pseudoisochromatic stimuli which make use of luminance noise to mask brightness clues and force the target perception to be dependent of chromatic contrast. In this work, we compared VECPs generated by sinusoidal and pseudoisochromatic gratings. This research was approved by the Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa, Núcleo de Medicina Tropical, Universidade Federal do Pará, Protocol #570434. Seven normal trichromats were tested with chromatic sinusoidal gratings and illusory gratings provided by the pseudoisochromatic design of 0.33, 0.66, 1, 1.33, 1.66, and 2 cpd, presented in pattern reversal (1 Hz) and pattern onset (300 ms) – offset (700 ms) modes. The signals were recorded using surface electrodes, amplified x30,000, digitized at 1 kHz, and filtered between 0.1-100 Hz. Pattern reversal VECPs elicited by pseudoisochromatic gratings had similar amplitude and latency compared to those elicited by sinusoidal gratings. Onsetoffset VECPs elicited by sinusoidal gratings had larger amplitude and shorter latency than those obtained with pseudoisochromatic stimuli. Different visual mechanisms are responsible for the cortical responses evoked by illusory stimuli when presented in different stimulation modes.
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