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Human and animal evoked potential research on the neurophysiological substrates of attention/distraction has shown enhanced amplitude in response to attended stimuli and diminished amplitude to probe stimuli during distraction.To study further the electrophysiological correlates of attention/distraction in humans under more natural conditions I used television viewing which provided a means to manipulate distraction level by varying the interest value of the TV programs people watched. Preliminary studies demonstrated that one can record reliable, event-related brain potentials from people while they watch television by computer averaging electro-cortical responses evoked by flicker probe stimuli electronically inserted in the TV picture.The results of three separate experiments on a total of 30 young adults studying the effects of program interest on these TV-evoked potentials (TVEPs) all revealed significantly smaller amplitude late components for vertex TVEPs when people watched personally interesting, in contrast to dull, programs. Present findings corroborate the results of human and animal studies showing reduced evoked potential amplitude accompanying distraction.The television evoked potential technique provides a unique method for studying the human brain's attentional and cognitive mechanisms at work under real-life conditions.
Edward W. P. Schafer (Sun,) studied this question.