Auditory and visual evoked potentials to irrelevant stimuli during conditioning to a visual stimulus

Amplitude changes of evoked responses to irrelevant auditory (click) and visual (optic tract stimulation) stimuli were examined during appetitive conditioning to a flashing light. Four female cats, with chronically implanted electrodes along the visual and auditory pathways, were conditioned with pairings of a flashing light and food reinforcement. The results showed that, as conditioning progressed, the auditory evoked potentials were attenuated while the visual evoked potentials did not change significantly. The data seem to indicate possible differences in the neural processing of irrelevant information.