[Dynamics of interhemispheric functional relations during formation of a functional connection between a visual...

The study was made on adult humans in a conflict situation. A combination of a non-verbal visual stimulus with an unrecognized emotional word substantially changes interhemispheric functional relations. The latency of the P300 potential in response to the first stimulus becomes reduced in the left occipital area. The potential amplitude considerably diminishes in all the recorded cortical areas (occipital, associative and central), but the reductions more pronounced in the left hemisphere. The nature of the P300 wave changes in response to the conditional stimulus is determined by psychophysiological properties of the "reinforcing" stimulus, in particular by its being non-recognized. Conditioned changes of the P300 wave in tests, where the "reinforcing" stimulus is not recognized, are very stable, and are not extinguished, despite repetitive presentation of the signal without combining it with the emotional word.