ERP

• event related potentials- use similar equipment to EEG (electrodes attached to scalp)
• a stimulus is presented to a participant (eg a picture/sound) and the researcher looks for activity related to that stimulus
• the stimulus is present many times (usually hundreds) and an average response is graphed.
• the time or interval between the presentation of the stimulus and the response is known as latency
• same equipment as EEG, but presents a stimulus many times, creating a smooth curve of activation by combining the data in a process called statistical averaging. This removes background electrical noise unrelated to the stimulus
• the waveforms from the event related potential peak and dip which show when cognitive processes in the brain happen after the stimulus is presented
• ERP's allow researchers to isolate and study how individual cognitive processes take place in the brain, while EEGs record general brain activity
• another evaluation- like EEG's, ERPs have a good temporal resolution with a millisecond sampling rate, but very poor spatial resolution