Similarity dependency of the change in ERP component N1 accompanying with the object recognition learning

Performance during object recognition across views is largely dependent on inter-object similarity. The present study was designed to investigate the similarity dependency of object recognition learning on the changes in ERP component N1. Human subjects were asked to train themselves to recognize novel objects with different inter-object similarity by performing object recognition tasks. During the tasks, images of an object had to be discriminated from the images of other objects irrespective of the viewpoint. When objects had a high inter-object similarity, the ERP component, N1 exhibited a significant increase in both the amplitude and the latency variation across objects during the object recognition learning process, and the N1 amplitude and latency variation across the views of the same objects decreased significantly. In contrast, no significant changes were found during the learning process when using objects with low inter-object similarity. The present findings demonstrate that the changes in the variation of N1 that accompany the object recognition learning process are dependent upon the inter-object similarity and imply that there is a difference in the neuronal representation for object recognition when using objects with high and low inter-object similarity.

► Performance on object recognition was dependent on the inter-object similarity.
► Object discrimination learning changed the variation of ERP component N1.
► The change in the variation of N1 was dependent on the inter-object similarity.