According to this wiki page:
If the vanishing drive based on pushing the opponents to focus attention to someone else and then steps in unexpectedly.
And also:
Kuroko uses his misdirection in function of his teammates. He must make eye-contact with the passer while doing his misdirection and so the eyefield of the other players becomes a "mirror" for Kuroko's position.
How is it that Momoi was affected by it when Kuroko showed to her for the first time, when no other player was around?
The way the vanishing drive works is that he diverts their attention for a split second, and is then past them by the time they realise what he's done. Against skilled players in a proper game, he needs something with a huge presence, such as Kagami or Aomine to make them forget about him, and that's the real trick, distracting someone when they're completely focused on you.
However Momoi is not a competitive basketball player and they were not playing in an actual game, so my best guess is that he was able to use something with far less presence than he would normally need, like a street lamp or a car or whatever was nearby.
When Kuroko went up against Midorima, with the intention of doing the vanishing drive, it shows what Midorima is looking at in his glasses. Before he finished perfecting the drive, Kuroko used the thing which has the most presence in the entire game, the ball. He slowly lowers the ball into a dribble, and as soon as Midorima's attention is completely on the ball, Kuroko ducks in at a very difficult angle to follow. The reason it works even against Midorima is that Kuroko can do it almost instantly after Midorima's attention is on the ball. Kuroko later perfects it with the addition of adding Kagami in.
To answer your question, this is a rather a technique based off of misdirection called Vanishing Drive.
Kuroko developed this after being soundly defeated by Daiki Aomine. As said on the wikia Kuroko trains himself to evolve his play style. Given the absolute presence and importance of the ball in play, it had been previously thought impossible for Kuroko to maintain his misdirection while in possession of the ball; as such the time he spends handling the ball on court is extremely minimal.
However
He has overcome this previous limitation, and has developed the ability to imperceptibly move past players while dribbling the ball, creating his own 'vanishing' drive. The ability is effective enough to pass through the defenses of Shintarō Midorima, a member of the Generation of Miracles, and can also pass Takao's Hawk's Eye
Vanishing drive does not follow the simple rules of misdirection exactly, but rather does this:
The skill is basically a cross-diagonal move (a duck-in) to where the opponent's eye field can't see. Kuroko bends over in a specific angle at drives following a specific route, that the opponent has it very difficult to follow. But the real Vanishing Drive is a collaboration with Kagami. Similar to Kuroko's misdirection, Kagami draws the attention of the opponent to him, just for a second, and that makes it possible for Kuroko to pass his opponent successfully.
This would also explain why Momoi was affected due to the fact it heavily rely's on where you opponent can't see which was why she was affected.
Bibliography for reference to information:
The relevant information that I have in my answer can be found by heading to the hyperlink here or above and going to abilities.
