BACKGROUND: Previous studies of attentional control have focused primarily on pre-cue control of attentional cue and direction. OBJECTIVE: To measure the differences in electrical activity of brain cells while processing pre-cue and post-cue compound stimuli, and to explore brain electrical activity during global and local processing of compound stimuli according to electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. DESIGN, TIME AND SETTING: A within-subject design study was performed at the School of Psychology, State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Leing, Beijing Normal University, China from March to May 2006. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 30 healthy, undergraduate students, aged 17-24 years, comprising 12 males and 18 females, were voluntarily enrolled from Beijing Normal University. Subjects exhibited normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. No significant non signal wave drift was detected during testing. METHODS: A total of 30 subjects were subjected to pre-cue and post-cue compound stimulus processing using event-related potential and EEG recordings. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Evoked potential was recorded in different brain regions utilizing event-related potential to observe hemispheric symmetry, cue consistency and global-local features. RESULTS: Pre-cue compound stimuli resulted in hemispheric asymmetry for early wave (N1) and late wave (P3) in anterior brain regions. Early- and late-wave induced hemispheric asymmetry for electrode points (O1, O2, P3, P4, Pz, F3, F4, F7, F8, Fz, FP1, FP2, T7, T8, C3, C4, and Cz) during processing of pre-cue compound stimuli (P < 0.05). Post-cue compound stimuli did not induce hemispheric asymmetry of brain waves induced by the above-described electrode points. No significant differences in global and local responses were determined during processing of post-cue compound stimuli. Under pre-cue conditions, significant differences were observed in N1 and P3 in the above-mentioned electrode points (P < 0.05). However, under post-cue conditions, no significant differences were observed in N1 and P3 using the above-mentioned electrode points. Significant differences in early waves (N1 and P1) using the above-mentioned electrode points were detected between anterior and posterior brain regions, regardless of consistent or inconsistent, large or small letters (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Cue location effected mechanisms underlying global and local processing of compound stimuli. Pre- or post-cue conditions resulted in differences in hemispheric symmetry, cue consistency, and global and local features. Under pre-cue conditions, hemispheric dominance was detected in global and local processing following compound stimuli. Under post-cue conditions, hemispheric dominance was not determined.