Change Blindness Disorder−The Short-Time Fourier-Based Coherence Analysis of Electric Potentials Produced Inside the Brain.

Abstract

The electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electric potentials produced inside the brain and over the years it has become one of the successful tools in analyzing various neurological disorders. This study investigates the EEG-based changes in brain connectivity due to change blindness disorder. The change blindness disorder is the inability of human brain to detect the substantial visual changes and its effects on functional connectivity of the brain was studied using the magnitude square coherence (MSC) analysis of EEG. In order to study changes in MSC across both time and frequency domains, the MSC was computed using the short-time Fourier (STFT). The EEG signals of change blindness disorder were obtained by the experiment in which 25 subjects were asked to detect substantial visual changes in visual stimulus which were shown to them using the computer monitor. The significant difference of MSC between change detection and change blindness trials was observed at frontal and parietal regions of the brain in gamma, theta and beta bands of frequencies. However, results of MSC analysis in gamma, and theta bands of frequencies were found different than those obtained using MSC analysis in beta band of frequency. The results of this study lead to the conclusion that change in blindness disorder might produce changes in functional connectivity at frontal and parietal regions of the brain. The results presented in this study are novel and will provide further understanding about the neurophysiological mechanism of change blindness.