Look at this photograph: Event-related potential responses to self-relevant, familiar, and categorical pictorial stimuli

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies of self-relevance have largely utilized self-name and self-face stimuli. The goal of this study was to examine whether previously observed ERP effects of self-relevance occur using a diverse set of pictorial stimuli. Participant-submitted photos were used as both targets and distractors in an oddball task. When the participants’ own photos were used as targets, P300 amplitude was higher compared to familiar targets as well as the previously unseen categorical targets. When the participants’ own photos were used as distractors, P300 amplitude was comparable to both familiar targets and categorical targets. P300 amplitude to participants’ photos did not correlate with their perceived involvement with the subject photographed as measured by the Revised Personal Involvement Inventory. We interpret these findings as suggesting that the attentional salience of information relating to the self extends beyond highly self-relevant cues such as one’s own name or face. All stimuli that the participants had exposure to prior to the task (i.e., their own photos and the familiar target stimuli) elicited a frontal positivity which was greater than what was elicited by previously unseen stimuli. Thus, parietal activity may better discriminate self-relevance from mere familiarity.