Muhammet Mustafa YILMAZ, Tolgay ERGENOGLU
Neurological Sciences and Neurophysiology - 2026;43(3):117-122
Aims: Nontarget-to-nontarget interval (NNI) and target-to-target interval (TTI), known as stimulus-to-matching stimulus interval, maintain their popularity in terms of examining event-related potential outcomes. Although it is stated that TTI is a predictor of P3 response, there are conflicting results in studies conducted by manipulating NNI. The conflicting findings for NNI can be shown as the deterioration of the template in working memory by the intervening target stimuli. We aimed to investigate the effects of manipulating the target-to-novel interval (TNI) within a visual three-stimulus (novelty) paradigm on event-related potential (ERP) responses, predicting that TNI would give consistent results in terms of P3a responses. Materials and Methods: In the study, TNI outcomes were examined using two types of novel stimuli in the visual three-stimulus paradigm with three different TNI times. Results: When novel stimuli became distant from target stimuli, higher amplitude peak-to-peak P3a responses occurred. Conclusions: Based on our findings, evaluating P3a-related studies with consideration of TNI may yield clearer, more accurate, and more specific results than NNI. As a result, TNI can be considered as a predictor of P3a in the visual three-stimulus paradigm.
