The stabilization of cortical evoked potentials during selective visual attention

The event-related potentials (ERP) to lateralized moving visual stimuli (administered to the right and to the left of the subject) were recorded in six derivations in eight healthy subjects during passive viewing and selective attention to one of the stimuli (the relevant one), which demanded precise and rapid motor reaction. It was shown that during the selective voluntary attention correlation between successive ERP was substantially higher than that under conditions of passive (involuntary) attention, i.e. the ERP in the occipital, parietal, and frontal derivations during voluntary attention were more stable. The less was correlation between the ERP at passive viewing, the greater was the difference between the values of correlation coefficients during selective and passive attention. It is suggested that role of selected attention consists in stabilization of activity of the cortical structures, which are involved in solving the behavioral task.