What are ERPs?

 

Whenever you do something, changes in your brain’s electrical activity concur.  We can record those changes in the scalp. The Electroencephalography (EEG) is the technique of recording and interpreting the electrical activity of the brain.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) reflect small changes in electrical activity time-locked to an event or mental process, for example the perception of a tone or the processing of a sentence meaning.

Analyzing the polarity, latency, amplitude and scalp distribution (topographic maps) of this activity can help us make inferences about the kind of processes triggered by the stimuli and where in the brain those processes occur.

Equipment

The Cognitive Neuroscience Lab houses one electrically shielded experimental room equipped with a 64-channel  BrainAmp® amplifiers device and a set of electrodes that can be arranged on EasyCaps® (different sizes are available).

We use the Vision Recorder® software for EEG recordings, Presentation® software (Neurobehavioral Systems) for stimulus delivery and experimental control, and Vision Analysis® software for EEG/ERPs data analysis.

Recording procedure

We record data from one person at a time. 

When you arrive, the researcher will describe how we record your brain activity, and how all of the equipment works to make you feel completely comfortable.

The procedure is painless, but is complicated and slightly distressing.

Feel free to ask the researcher every question you need to solve about the experiment or procedures.

Because of the electrode preparation, every experimental session generally lasts 2-2.5 hours. 

Please note you might want to wash your head because the experiment will mess up your hair.