Abstract
Cortical responses to complex natural stimuli can be isolated by examining the relationship between neural measures obtained while multiple individuals view the same stimuli. These inter-subject correlation’s (ISC’s) emerge from similarities in individual’s cortical response to the shared audiovisual inputs, which may be related to their emergent cognitive and perceptual experience. Within the present study, our goal is to examine the utility of using ISC’s for predicting which audiovisual clips individuals viewed, and to examine the relationship between neural responses to natural stimuli and subjective reports. The ability to predict which clips individuals viewed depends on the relationship of the EEG response across subjects and the nature in which this information is aggregated. We conceived of three approaches for aggregating responses, i.e. three assignment algorithms, which we evaluated in Experiment 1A. The aggregate correlations algorithm generated the highest assignment accuracy (70.83% chance = 33.33%) and was selected as the assignment algorithm for the larger sample of individuals and clips within Experiment 1B. The overall assignment accuracy was 33.46% within Experiment 1B (chance = 06.25%), with accuracies ranging from 52.9% (Silver Linings Playbook) to 11.75% (Seinfeld) within individual clips. ISC’s were significantly greater than zero for 15 out of 16 clips, and fluctuations within the delta frequency band (i.e. 0-4 Hz) primarily contributed to response similarities across subjects. Interestingly, there was insufficient evidence to indicate that individuals with greater similarities in clip preference demonstrate greater similarities in cortical responses, suggesting a lack of association between ISC and clip preference. Overall these results demonstrate the utility of using ISC’s for prediction, and further characterize the relationship between ISC magnitudes and subjective reports.
Highlights
Individuals experience a broad range of perceptual and cognitive events throughout the day
Since inter-subject correlation (ISC’s) may emerge from similarities in the direct neural response to the audiovisual inputs, as well as similarities in their emergent perceptual experience [10,11], we examined whether individuals with similar clip preferences had similar cortical responses to the clips
We examined the utility of using ISC’s for predicting which audiovisual clips individuals viewed, and their potential relationship to subjective reports
Summary
Individuals experience a broad range of perceptual and cognitive events throughout the day. Cortical responses may emerge from natural stimuli as either evoked oscillations (i.e. evoked potentials) from the stimuli, or phase entrainment (i.e. phase tracking) to the stimulus features [4,5]. These responses may be mediated in part by individual’s preference toward the stimulus, which may be interrelated with their attentional and emotional engagement with the stimulus content [6]. These factors contribute to the characteristics of electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG) responses that may be preserved across subjects viewing the same stimulus, which would facilitate the ability to integrate information across multiple subjects for predicting the audiovisual clip that an individual viewed
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