Event-related Potential Research Research Articles

ERP CORE: An open resource for human event-related potential research

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are noninvasive measures of human brain activity that index a range of sensory, cognitive, affective, and motor processes. Despite their broad application across basic and clinical research, there is little standardization of ERP paradigms and analysis protocols across studies. To address this, we created ERP CORE (Compendium of Open Resources and Experiments), a set of optimized paradigms, experiment control scripts, data processing pipelines, and sample data (N = 40 neurotypical young adults) for seven widely used ERP components: N170, mismatch negativity (MMN), N2pc, N400, P3, lateralized readiness potential (LRP), and error-related negativity (ERN). This resource makes it possible for researchers to 1) employ standardized ERP paradigms in their research, 2) apply carefully designed analysis pipelines and use a priori selected parameters for data processing, 3) rigorously assess the quality of their data, and 4) test new analytic techniques with standardized data from a wide range of paradigms.

Part-List Cues Hinder Familiarity but Not Recollection in Item Recognition: Behavioral and Event-Related Potential Evidence.

Participants’ memory performance is normally poorer when a subset of previously learned items is provided as retrieval cues than none of the retrieval cues is provided. This phenomenon is called the part-list cuing effect, which has been discovered in numerous behavioral studies. However, there is currently no relevant behavioral or event-related potential (ERP) research to investigate whether the forgetting effect caused by part-list cues is more sensitive to recollection or to familiarity. By combining the part-list cuing paradigm with the Remember/Know procedure, we investigated this issue in the present ERP study. Behavioral data showed part-list cuing induced detrimental effect in two aspects: significantly lowered familiarity of the target items and decreased memory discrimination score (Pr score) for “Know” but not for “Remember” items in the part-list cue condition than in the no-part-list cue condition. ERP data revealed that the FN400 old/new effects, which are associated with familiarity, were absent when providing part-list cues, whereas the late positive complex (LPC) old/new effects, which are associated with recollection, were observed comparably in both part-list cue and no-part-list cue conditions. Converging behavioral and ERP results suggested that part-list cues hindered familiarity-based retrieval but not recollection-based retrieval of item recognition. Theoretical implications of the findings for the part-list cuing effect are discussed.

External (Versus Internal) Facial Features Contribute Most to Repetition Priming in Facial Recognition: ERP Evidence.

Previous event-related potential (ERP) research demonstrated four successive ERP components in the repetition priming of human face recognition: P100, N170, N250r, and N400. While these components correspond, respectively, to the four stages proposed by the interactive activation and competition (IAC) model, there has been no emphasis in past research on how internal and external facial features affect repetition priming and the sensitivity of these ERP components to item interval. This study was designed to address these issues. We used faces of celebrities as targets, including completely familiar faces, familiar internal feature faces, and familiar external feature faces. We displayed a target face either immediately following its prime (immediate repetition) or after a delay with interference from a presentation of two other faces (delayed repetition). ERP differences at P100 and N170 were nearly statistically non-significant; familiar faces and familiar external feature faces were associated with reliable ERP signals of N250r and N400 in the immediate repetition condition. For delayed repetition, however, N250r and N400 signals were only preserved for the familiar external feature faces. The differences of these ERP components suggest that, compared with internal facial features, external features of a previously presented face contribute more to brain-based facial repetition priming, particularly during the last two stages of the IAC model.

Faces with foreign accents: An event-related potential study of accented sentence comprehension

Mounting Event-Related Potential (ERP) research testing the neurocognitive processes of foreign- and native-accented speech comprehension shows that listeners process foreign-accented speech in qualitatively and quantitatively different ways from native-accented speech. Previous ERP research has presented listeners with foreign- and native-accented sentences only, devoid of any cues to the speaker's identity. Additional cues about the foreign-accented speaker identity, such as faces, may be useful in aiding listeners' processing, potentially reducing differences between neurocognitive processes associated with foreign-accented and native-accented speech comprehension. This study tested whether providing listeners with extra-linguistic face cues to the speakers' identity affects the ERP correlates of grammatical and semantic processing of foreign-accented and native-accented sentences. Specifically, we presented listeners with face cues to speaker identity followed by native- and foreign-accented sentences that were identical to Grey and Van Hell (2017), who did not provide face cues. To elucidate the effects of face cues, we compared the present study's Face Cue data with the Grey and Van Hell (2017) No Face Cue data. For grammar processing, the results showed a biphasic Nref-P600 for native-accented speech and a P600 for foreign-accented speech in the Face Cue group. In the No Face Cue group, results for grammar processing showed an Nref for native-accented speech and no significant ERP effects for foreign-accented speech. This result indicates that face cues were effective in aiding processing of foreign-accented sentences. For semantic processing, there were robust N400 effects for native-accented speech and delayed N400s for foreign-accented speech in the Face Cue and No Face Cue groups. This pattern indicates that the extra-linguistic face cue to foreign-accented speaker identity did not affect semantic processing. Overall, the results provide neurocognitive evidence that the integration of speaker and face information aids listeners during the processing of foreign-accented speech, particularly for grammatical processing.

Using event-related potentials to explore processes of change in counseling psychology.

The purpose of this article is to serve as a guide for counseling psychologists to learn about a neuroscience methodology that can be used to study psychotherapy change processes. Event-related potential (ERP) is a specific type of electroencephalography that can be time-locked to a stimulus and thus allows researchers to examine neural responses to specific therapeutic techniques. A conceptual overview of the method and its applicability to counseling psychologists is provided. Additionally, this article contains basic guidelines for designing an ERP study, the tools necessary for setting up an ERP lab, and an overview of data-processing strategies. Common pitfalls encountered both broadly in neuroscience research and specifically in ERP research are discussed. An integrated review of relevant literature is presented here, along with suggestions for future counseling psychology research, with a focus on establishing biomarkers of successful interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Toward a valid electrocortical correlate of regulation of craving using single-trial regression

Regulation of craving (ROC) is a promising method of intervention in addiction and has received attention in event-related potential (ERP) research investigating the late positive potential (LPP). However, in the face of previously unaligned behavioral and LPP results, the present work aimed to take a first step toward more valid electrocortical markers of ROC. Twenty-seven smokers (16 female), abstinent from smoking for 3 h prior to testing, viewed smoking-related pictures while EEG was recorded. During picture viewing, participants were asked to either imagine the short-term benefits (NOW condition) or long-term negative consequences (LATER condition) of smoking, or engage in an arithmetic task (DISTRACT condition). After each picture, participants indicated picture-related subjective craving. In addition to analyzing classic ERPs, we employed single-trial multiple robust regression within subjects to relate EEG activity at each time point and electrode to trial-wise craving ratings. Craving was lower in the LATER and DISTRACT than the NOW condition. LPP amplitudes (300–1000 ms at centro-parietal electrodes) were lower in the DISTRACT but not the LATER compared to the NOW condition. Trial-wise craving was captured between 500 and 1100 ms and around 2400 ms at central midline and left sites for DISTRACT and associated with a very brief and local signal (~900 ms; at C3) for LATER. This replicates the mismatch between self-reported craving and LPP. Single-trial results suggest that the correlates of ROC are not entirely compatible with the focus on centro-parietal slow waves (i.e. the LPP) and that different strategies of ROC are characterized by distinct electrocortical markers.

The N2pc component as a neural index of early attention allocation among adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Recent evidence from event-related potentials (ERPs) has identified N2 posterior contralateral (pc) amplitudes as a neural marker of early attention allocation. The N2pc has been used to evaluate attention biases (ABs) in samples with anxiety-based problems, but its utility has yet to be considered among persons with chronic pain, another group theorized to display ABs that perpetuate their difficulties. To address this gap, we assessed N2pc responses of adults with chronic pain (N=70) and pain-free controls (N=70) during a dot-probe task comprising painful-neutral and happy-neutral facial expression image pairs. Analyses indicated that (1) larger N2pc amplitudes were elicited by both painful and happy expressions compared to complementary neutral expressions in each sample, (2) the chronic pain sample displayed larger N2pc amplitudes during exposure to both painful and happy expressions than controls did and (3) no group differences were evident for N2pc latencies. Overall N2pc results reflected general biases in early allocation of attention towards affectively valenced expressions rather than pain-specific ABs among chronic pain cohorts. SIGNIFICANCE: Although numerous researchers have examined pain-related attention biases, these data are based exclusively upon behavioural measures of attention such as reaction times and eye movements. Drawing from relevant event-related potentials research, this study is the first to evaluate and identify differences in orienting of attention between adults with chronic pain and pain-free controls based on N2 posterior contralateral (pc) amplitudes which provide a neural index of early attention allocation.

Understanding event-related potentials (ERPs) in clinical and basic language and communication disorders research: a tutorial.

Event-related potentials (ERPs), which are electrophysiological neural responses time-locked to a stimulus, have become an increasingly common tool in language and communication disorders research. They can provide complementary evidence to behavioural measures as well as unique perspectives on communication disorders. ERPs have the distinct advantage of providing precise information about the timing of neural processes and can be used in cases where it is difficult to obtain responses from participants, such as infants or individuals who are minimally verbal. However, clinicians and clinician-scientists rarely receive training in how to interpret ERP research. To provide information that allows readers to better understand, interpret and evaluate research using ERPs. We focus on research related to communication sciences and disorders and the information that is most relevant to interpreting research articles. We explain what ERPs are and how ERP data are collected, referencing key texts and primary research articles. Potential threats to validity, guidelines for interpreting data, and the pros and cons using of ERPs are discussed. Research in the area of paediatric language disorders is used as a model; common paradigms such as the semantic incongruity N400 and auditory mismatch negativity are used as tangible examples. With this foundation of understanding ERPs, the state of the field in terms of how ERPs are used and the ways they may inform the field are discussed. To date, no review has focused on ERPs as they relate to clinical or communication research. The main contribution of this review is that it provides practical information geared toward understanding ERP research. ERPs offer insights into neural processes supporting communication and can both complement behaviour and provide information that behavioural measures cannot. We encourage readers to evaluate articles using ERPs critically, effectively pushing the field forward through increased understanding and rigor. What this paper adds ERPs have become more prevalent in research relevant to communication sciences and disorders. In order for clinicians to review and evaluate this research, an understanding of ERPs is needed. This review adds to the field by providing an accessible description of what ERPs are, a description of what ERP components are, and the most relevant commonly used components, as well as how ERP data are recorded and processed. With this foundational understanding of how ERPs work, guidelines for the interpretation of ERP data are given. Though few ERP studies currently have direct implications for clinical practice, we discuss several ways through which ERPs can impact clinical practice in future, by providing information that cannot be obtained by behaviour alone about the aetiology of disorders, and as potential biomarkers of disorder or treatment response.

ERP and MEG correlates of visual consciousness: The second decade

The first decade of event-related potential (ERP) research had established that the most consistent correlates of the onset of visual consciousness are the early visual awareness negativity (VAN), a posterior negative component in the N2 time range, and the late positivity (LP), an anterior positive component in the P3 time range. Two earlier extensive reviews ten years ago had concluded that VAN is the earliest and most reliable correlate of visual phenomenal consciousness, whereas LP probably reflects later processes associated with reflective/access consciousness. This article provides an update to those earlier reviews. ERP and MEG studies that have appeared since 2010 and directly compared ERPs between aware and unaware conditions are reviewed, and important new developments in the field are discussed. The result corroborates VAN as the earliest and most consistent signature of visual phenomenal consciousness, and casts further doubt on LP as an ERP correlate of phenomenal consciousness.

Methodological choices in event-related potential (ERP) research and their impact on internal consistency reliability and individual differences: An examination of the error-related negativity (ERN) and anxiety.

Researchers in clinical psychophysiology make several methodological decisions during the analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, we review these choices from the perspective of individual differences. We focus on baseline period and reference scheme (i.e., average, mastoid, current source density), as well as choices regarding where (i.e., single electrode site vs. pooling of sites), when (i.e., area, area around peak), and how (i.e., subtraction- or regression-based difference scores) to quantify ERPs. To illustrate the impact of these analytic pathways on internal consistency reliability and individual differences, we focus on the error-related negativity (ERN) and anxiety-and present data from 2 samples: 1st, in adults with diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); 2nd, in relation to continuous self-reported symptoms of GAD in a large community sample of female adolescents. Results generally indicated similar internal consistency and between-subjects effect sizes across all evaluated methods. Nonetheless, some patterns of variation emerged, such as that, across both data sets, difference-based ERN measures, especially with mastoid reference, yielded more robust associations with GAD diagnosis and symptoms, despite somewhat lower internal consistency. The current analyses suggest that the association between ERN and anxiety is robust across a range of commonly used methodological choices. The present study is an example of how systematic analyses of analytic strategies on measures of internal consistency and between-subjects variability could help inform individual-differences ERP research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Methodological Choices in Event-Related Potential (ERP) Research and Their Impact on Internal Consistency Reliability and Individual Differences: An Examination of the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) and Anxiety

Supplemental Material for Methodological Choices in Event-Related Potential (ERP) Research and Their Impact on Internal Consistency Reliability and Individual Differences: An Examination of the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) and Anxiety

The role of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) as sensitive measures in L2 vocabulary acquisition research

Neurocognitive measures have only scarcely been used in second language (L2) vocabulary research. Traditionally, L2 vocabulary knowledge has been gauged by using off-line measures that allow for conscious thinking and attentional control. Yet, it has been argued that more research is warranted on the role of measures that have the sensitivity to tap into on-line lexical processing. Recording Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) may be an effective technique in order to refine our understanding of L2 vocabulary knowledge. In the current article, we provide a comprehensive review of the relevant literature in order to examine the extent to which ERP research may be valuable to L2 vocabulary research. This review focuses on the potential of ERPs to address the multifaceted nature of vocabulary knowledge. It also examines the role of ERPs to elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the incremental nature of L2 vocabulary learning. Finally, this paper discusses the extent to which ERPs might contribute to understanding factors that affect L2 vocabulary learning.

Conducting Event-Related Potential (ERP) Research with Young Children: A Review of Components, Special Considerations and Recommendations for Research on Cognition and Emotion.

There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of research studies employing event-related potential (ERP) techniques to examine dynamic and rapidly-occurring neural processes with children during the preschool and early childhood years. Despite this, there has been little discussion of the methodological and procedural differences that exist for studies of young children versus older children and adults. That is, reviewers, editors, and consumers of this work often expect developmental studies to simply apply adult techniques and procedures to younger samples. Procedurally, this creates unrealistic expectations for research paradigms, data collection, and data reduction and analyses. Scientifically, this leads to inappropriate measures and methods that hinder drawing conclusions and advancing theory. Based on ERP work with preschoolers and young children from 10 laboratories across North America, we present a summary of the most common ERP components under study in the area of emotion and cognition in young children along with 13 realistic expectations for data collection and loss, laboratory procedures and paradigms, data processing, ERP averaging, and typical challenges for conducting this type of work. This work is intended to supplement previous guidelines for work with adults and offer insights to aid researchers, reviewers, and editors in the design and evaluation of developmental research using ERPs. Here we make recommendations for researchers who plan to conduct or who are conducting ERP studies in children between ages 2 and 12, focusing on studies of toddlers and preschoolers. Recommendations are based on both data and our cumulative experience and include guidelines for laboratory setup, equipment and recording settings, task design, and data processing.

Embodiment Effect on the Comprehension of Mandarin Manual Action Language: An ERP Study

Embodiment theories argue that language comprehension involves activating specific sensory-motor systems in the brain. Previous research performed in English and other Indo-European languages suggests that, when compared to compatible sentences referring to the same actions performed sequentially (e.g. 'After cleaning the wound he unrolled the bandage'), incompatible sentences describing two manual actions performed simultaneously by an agent (e.g. 'While cleaning the wound he unrolled the bandage') were worse understood and increased the event-related potentials (ERPs) component N400. The present ERP research aims to further investigate brain response to motor compatibility in native Mandarin speakers. The Chinese experimental sentences described two manual actions either in incongruent conditions marked by the Chinese parallel structure … … ('yibian…yibian…'/'while… while…') or congruent conditions marked by the sequential structure … … ('xian…ranhou…'/'firstly… then…'). The last action clause elicited larger fronto-central N400 in the incongruent condition, which reveals that there are semantic embodiment effects on the comprehension of Mandarin manual action language.

Electroencephalogram Evidence for Memory Suppression: A Systematic Review

Abstract Understanding how people forget is one of the fundamental goals of the science of memory. Recent studies indicate that humans can voluntarily regulate awareness of unwanted memories by stopping the retrieval process that would ordinarily bring past experience into awareness. Event-related potential (ERP) research on memory retrieval reveals that electrophysiological effects with specific timing and scalp topography serve as markers of memory processes. This systematic review examines the literature regarding EEG alterations in memory suppression, highlighting their results on electrophysiological indicators. A systematic review from January 2007 to November 2017 was conducted using PubMed, Embase and ScienceDirect databases. As results, 12 studies were eligible for inclusion. Quantitative EEG can be a objective tool for studying the mechanisms involved in memory suppression. There is evidence that a parietal positivity around 400-800ms after cue presentation is an ERP marker of conscious recollection during memory retrieval and a larger N2 deflection during retrieval suppression predicted greater suppression-induced forgetting.

S11-3. Three points to remember when you conduct research using event-related potentials

Event-related potentials (ERP) are a part of the electroencephalogram (EEG) that is time-locked to a certain event, such as stimulus presentation or movement onset. As recent advances in electronics bring inexpensive and easy-to-use EEG amplifiers to the market, more and more people are interested in also recording ERPs. However, easy-to-use does not mean easy-to-succeed. In this talk, I will make three practical recommendations for conducting ERP research. First, make sure that the timings of events are precisely registered with the EEG data. Recent commercial EEG devices may not be as precise as traditional ones. Ask the distributor about how the device synchronizes the two information sources, and if possible, check the system yourself in terms of delays and the temporal stability of event markers. Second, try to make the whole research process as open and transparent as possible. Because brain electrical activities are multidimensional, and an infinite variety of analysis techniques are available, it is preferable to decide how to analyze the data in advance. Third, prepare to share your data with other researchers, as the “Open Science” movement is gaining popularity in this field. Institutional ethics approval and participant informed consent should be obtained to proceed in this direction.

Relationship of Event-Related Potentials to the Vigilance Decrement

Cognitive fatigue emerges in wide-ranging tasks and domains, but traditional vigilance tasks provide a well-studied context in which to explore the mechanisms underlying it. Though a variety of experimental methodologies have been used to investigate cognitive fatigue in vigilance, relatively little research has utilized electroencephalography (EEG), specifically event-related potentials (ERPs), to explore the nature of cognitive fatigue, also known as the vigilance decrement. Moreover, much of the research that has been done on vigilance and ERPs uses non-traditional vigilance paradigms, limiting generalizability to the established body of behavioral results and corresponding theories. In this study, we address concerns with prior research by (1) investigating the vigilance decrement using a well-established visual vigilance task, (2) utilizing a task designed to attenuate possible confounding ERP components present within a vigilance paradigm, and (3) informing our interpretations with recent findings from ERP research. We averaged data across electrodes located over the frontal, central, and parietal scalp. Then, we generated waveforms locked to the onset of critical low-frequency or non-critical high-frequency events during a 40 min task that was segregated into time blocks for data analysis. There were three primary findings from the analyses of these data. First, mean amplitude of N1 was greater during later blocks for both low-frequency and high-frequency events, a contradictory finding compared to past visual vigilance studies that is further discussed with respect to current interpretations of the N1 in visual attention tasks. Second, P3b mean amplitude following low-frequency events was reduced during later blocks, with a later onset latency. Third and finally, the decrease in P3b amplitude correlated with individual differences in the magnitude of the vigilance decrement, assessed using d′. The results provide evidence for degradations of cognitive processing efficiency brought on by extended time on task, leading to delayed processing and decreased discriminability of critical stimuli from non-critical stimuli. These conclusions are discussed in the context of the vigilance decrement and corresponding theoretical accounts.

The role of expectations and habitual emotion regulation in emotional processing: An ERP investigation.

Available evidence from separate lines of event-related potential (ERP) research has highlighted the role of expectations and emotion regulation on emotional processing by revealing that (i) expectations can alter emotional responses, and (ii) the instructed use of emotion regulation strategies may modulate emotional responses. Yet, little is known about the interplay between expectations and habitual emotion regulation strategies prior to and at the onset of an emotional event. The present study aimed to investigate this potential relationship. Participants completed an affective-cueing task consisting of cues (red squares and blue circles) signaling the likely valence of upcoming target images (negative or neutral). This task allowed us to examine the impact of expectations at 2 temporal stages, Cue Interval and Target Interval, by measuring the late positive potential (LPP) as an index of emotional processing. Habitual use of emotion regulation strategies was assessed through the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), which measures the use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in everyday life. In the Cue Interval, LPP amplitude was greater for negative versus neutral cues (p < .001). In the Target Interval, LPP amplitude was greater for negatively cued versus neutrally cued targets, regardless of target valence (p = .003). ERQ reappraisal, but not suppression, negatively correlated with LPP modulation as a function of cue valence during both intervals (ps < .05). These findings provide novel insights regarding the interplay between expectations and habitual emotion regulation in emotional processing both prior to and at the onset of an emotional event. (PsycINFO Database Record

Cognitive and Emotional Effects of Bilingualism Childhood and Adulthood

Mastering more than one languages gives some advantages because of the correlation of the language and the brain. If we use more than one languages mean our brain has to work more that it works in one language. It means our brain has to be more active that can activate all the neurons of the brain and automatically make the brain much better in its functions. And of course, using more than one languages change how we assume and interpret everything in our surrounding. Using evidences from reaction time, eye-tracking, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and event-related potential research, it shows how language experience transforms cognitive control and emotion, two features that they are central to human communication. We suggest that managing multiple languages not only impacts cognitive control and emotion independently, but also the way in which they interact with each other. Within cognitive control, we present research suggesting that bilinguals demonstrate benefits compared to monolinguals and discuss the potential sources of these benefits, including parallel language activation and language switching. We also explore the potential links between linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive processes. Within emotion, we discuss whether bilinguals process emotions similarly across their first and second languages and consider how linguistic context and one’s cultural affiliation may impact memory (e.g., storage and retrieval) of emotional events. The evidence discussed in this chapter highlights the transformative effect that bilingual experience has on how human beings understand and interpret the world

Differences in phonetic discrimination stem from differences in psychoacoustic abilities in learning the sounds of a second language: Evidence from ERP research.

The scientific community has been divided as to the origin of individual differences in perceiving the sounds of a second language (L2). There are two alternative explanations: a general psychoacoustic origin vs. a speech-specific one. A previous study showed that such individual variability is linked to the perceivers’ speech-specific capabilities, rather than the perceivers’ psychoacoustic abilities. However, we assume that the selection of participants and parameters of sound stimuli might not appropriate. Therefore, we adjusted the sound stimuli and recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from two groups of early, proficient Cantonese (L1)-Mandarin (L2) bilinguals who differed in their mastery of the Mandarin (L2) phonetic contrast /in-ing/, to explore whether the individual differences in perceiving L2 stem from participants’ ability to discriminate various pure tones (frequency, duration and pattern). To precisely measure the participants’ acoustic discrimination, mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited by the oddball paradigm was recorded in the experiment. The results showed that significant differences between good perceivers (GPs) and poor perceivers (PPs) were found in the three general acoustic conditions (frequency, duration and pattern), and the MMN amplitude for GP was significantly larger than for PP. Therefore, our results support a general psychoacoustic origin of individual variability in L2 phonetic mastery.