Selective Attentiveness and Cortical Evoked Responses to Visual and Auditory Stimuli

Cortical evoked responses to flashes and clicks were recorded from human subjects performing visual or auditory tasks under three conditions of selective attentiveness. The subjects were required to attend to the flashes and to ignore alternating clicks, or vice versa. Responses to flashes recorded from the occipital area were larger when attention was directed toward visual stimuli, and responses to click stimuli recorded from the temporal area were larger when attention was directed toward auditory stimuli.