Final answer:
Attention affects the p20-p50 complex, which is associated with brain sensory-evoked potentials. Unlike in communication systems where BER is not affected by attention, in neuroscience, attention can enhance these potentials when directed towards a stimulus.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question pertains to the effects of attention on the p20-p50 complex within the field of neuroscience. The p20-p50 complex is part of the early components of sensory-evoked potentials, which can be measured by electroencephalography (EEG). In studies related to attentional processing, researchers have found that attention can indeed affect the amplitude and latency of sensory-evoked potentials, including the p20-p50 complex.
Attention can modulate the neural processes underlying the generation of the p20-p50 complex, typically resulting in larger amplitude potentials when attention is directed towards the sensory stimulus compared to when it is not. This may not be the case for outcome measures like bit error rate (BER) in communication systems, where attention does not apply. While the figure mentioned demonstrates an example of inattentional blindness, where participants were focused on one task and missed a salient stimulus (the red cross) not related to their task, it serves as an illustration of how attention can modulate sensory perception and, subsequently, neural processing in the brain.