Operant Control of Slow Brain Potentials: A Tool in the Investigation of the Potential’s Meaning and Its Relation to Attentional Dysfunction

Most of the events which we experience in our everyday life do not happen unexpectedly. Rather, the previous experience of a sequence of events in a certain environment evokes assumptions about future events (“… coming events cast their shadows before”: Thomas Campbell, 1777–1844). Humans continuously generate probabilistic predictions regarding the near future. If the probability of a potentially important event has not been evaluated, its occurrence will provoke an emotional response, e.g., surprise or defense. Surprise signals the need for coping and generally leads to exploratory behavior aimed at the update of our internal models of the environment, so that predictions will become more valid.