ROLE OF ATTENTION IN THE VARIATION OF EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS

After having recalled some results concerning attention studies using experimental psychology or animal neurophysiologiy methods, princeps experiments based on event-related potentials are presented. An experiment made in our laboratory allowed the extension of former results. This experiment showed that the amplitude of N1 wave increased with the amount of attention allocated to a sensory channel. Conversely, the latencies of N2 and P3 waves were lenghened by additional processing time caused by attentional decrease. When the attentional ressources allocated to a sensory channel were reduced, the amplitude of P3 wave was indirectly lowered.