Early attention selection processes are affected in both alcohol-dependent and unaffected HR individuals (Steinhauer et al., 1987), as indicated by diminished N100 component. Using a bimodal task (auditory and visual stimuli), a study on abstinent alcoholics, controls, and FHP offspring showed reduced visual N1 amplitude in alcoholics and reduced auditory N1 amplitude in the FHP individuals (Patterson et al., 1987). The dampening of N1 amplitudes to repetitive stimuli may be associated with the refractoriness (Cohen et al., 1996) or may be a reflection of lateral inhibition at the cortical level (Sable et al., 2004); however they were not very effective in differentiating HR from LR individuals.
