Performance of epileptic patients in continuous reaction-time situations.

Through the use of a 4-choice continuous reaction-time paradigm, the hypothesis that epiliptic patients have frequent lapses of attention was tested. Control subjects were nonepileptic mentally retarded subjects matched for IQ and CA. Experimental variables were: paced and self-paced work, massed and spaced work periods, and short or long stimulus exposition. The epileptic patients performed well as compared to the control group or to nonretarded persons with respect to reaction time, accuracy, and the occurrence of mental blocks. No abnormal disturbance of attention was clearly detected. This conclusion leads to the possibility that even for patients with severe epilepsy, some tasks can be defined that they can perform successfully.