RESEARCH ARTICLE Cornelia Kranczioch Æ Stefan Debener Christoph S. Herrmann Æ Andreas K. Engel EEG gamma-band activity in rapid serial visual presentation Received: 4 May 2005 / Accepted: 11 July 2005 / Published online: 18 November 2005 Ó Springer-Verlag 2005 Abstract Evidence is available that oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range (>30 Hz) might be related to the attentional selection of target items. Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigms are instrumental in addressing cognitive functions such as visual atten- tion, and they are increasingly combined with the mea- surement of electrical brain activity. In the present study, gamma-band responses for target and standard stimuli were investigated in an RSVP oddball paradigm. In a first study, stimuli were presented at a frequency of 10 Hz, the stimulus sequence consisted of rare colored letters (targets) and frequent black letters (standards). In addition, stimulus size was varied across experimental blocks. Significant target modulations were observed for the P3 ERP and induced (i.e., not phase-locked) gamma- band responses. Besides this late activation, no further gamma-band responses were observed. A second study aimed at replicating these findings by employing a re- duced stimulus presentation rate of 7.1 Hz. Again, be- sides the P3 ERP a late increase in induced gamma-band activity was observed. However, as compared to Study 1, this induced response was less pronounced. The in- duced gamma-band response observed in the present studies might reflect utilization of information derived from previous processing steps for behavioral perfor- mance or memory storage as suggested in the ‘match- and-utilization-model’ of gamma activity. Keywords Evoked gamma-band activity Æ Induced gamma-band activity Æ RSVP Æ EEG Æ ERP Æ Match-and-utilization-model Introduction An increasingly important procedure in the investigation of cognitive processes is the rapid serial visual presen- tation (RSVP) of series of stimuli such as digits, letters, words, or pictures. RSVP typically refers to the pre- sentation of stimulus series at a fixed location with presentation frequencies ranging from 3 to 20 items per second. Paradigms employing RSVP have been used, for instance, in research on visual awareness (Kranczioch et al. 2005), language processing (Harris and Morris 2001; Rolke et al. 2001), emotion (Jungho¨fer et al. 2001; Vroomen et al. 2001), and attention (e.g., Raymond et al. 1992; Chun and Potter 1995; Vogel et al. 1998; Mu¨ller and Hu¨bner 2002; Kranczioch et al. 2003). In some of these studies, RSVP paradigms have been combined with measuring electrical brain activity. However, a measure that seems of particular interest in this context (Fell et al. 2002), namely, stimulus-related activity in the gamma-frequency range, has not been addressed in RSVP paradigms so far. Gamma-band responses (GBRs), i.e., stimulus re- lated power changes at frequencies above 30 Hz, have been observed in a wide variety of experiments, includ- ing studies on perceptual feature binding, learning, memory, language, and sensory awareness (e.g., Keil et al. 1999; Pulvermu¨ller et al. 1999; Stru¨ber et al. 2000; Gruber et al. 2002). In particular, GBRs have been shown to be modulated by attention. Thus, animal as well as human studies report increased GBRs for at- tended visual and auditory stimuli (Tiitinen et al. 1993; Sokolov et al. 1999; Fries et al. 2001; Mu¨ller and Keil 2004). An increase in gamma activity has also been C. Kranczioch Æ S. Debener Æ A. K. Engel (&) Institut fu¨r Neurophysiologie und Pathophysiologie, Zentrum fu¨r Experimentelle Medizin, Universita¨tsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistr. 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany E-mail: ak.engel@uke.uni-hamburg.de Tel.: +49-40-428036170 Fax: +49-40-428037752 C. S. Herrmann Institut fu¨r Psychologie, Otto-von-Guericke Universita¨t Magdeburg, 39016 Magdeburg, Germany Present address: C. Kranczioch Kleinwachau, Sa¨chsisches Epilepsiezentrum Radeberg, 01454 Radeberg, Germany Exp Brain Res (2006) 169: 246–254 DOI 10.1007/s00221-005-0139-2