[Psychophysiological studies of EEG, operational performance and the dynamics of vigilance regulation. I. The EEG during performance of Brickenkamp's attention-concentration test (test d 2) (author's transl)].

During the performance of the d 2 test developed by Brickenkamp (standardized test of attention and concentration), occipital EEG activity was registered telemetrically in 10 male students aged 25 to 32 years. Simultaneously, the pencil markings performed by the subjects, indicating the time course of their pattern recognition and discrimination, were recorded by means of a piezo-electrical transducer. The EEG behavior during test performance was evaluated by serial spectral analysis. The analysis of the EEG parameters derived from it (total power, absolute and relative alpha-power) showed that there is a relationship between these EEG measures reflecting the regulation of cortical vigilance and the error rate in the concentration test. While subjects with low error rate present a heightening of cortical arousal focused in the right occipital area, subjects with higher error rate tend to have a higher degree of general cortical activation.