EEG and Event-Related Potentials in Undergraduate PsychologyLaboratories

该项目的目的是提高学生在研究人类大脑功能和行为之间关系的科学探究经验。 这一目标将通过将当代基于计算机的心电图方法，特别是事件相关电位的测量，纳入我们的生物和实验心理学实验室来实现。 这一策略是基于这种方法在当代研究中的重要性，以及学生对测量人脑活动并将其与行为相关联的高度兴趣。 定制设计的软件包由一位工程师创建，该工程师已经与该项目进行了广泛的讨论，将使用LabVIEW编写。 这种方法将提供软件，不仅有一个方便的用户界面，但也熟悉我们的学生，因为大多数将以前与LabVIEW编程。 因此，我们将能够修改软件以满足不断变化的需求。 刺激将通过第二个软件包，PsyScope，与我们的学生也已经熟悉的手段。 实验计划向学生介绍基本的事件相关电位范式-测量对预测刺激的运动反应之前的准备电位和视觉刺激引起的P300成分的潜伏期或幅度。 这些实验将在几个不同的课程中进行。 由于学生通常会采取其中一个以上，他们将有机会掌握足够的程序，以便能够在自己的高级研究项目中使用它们。 有前途的大二和大三学生也将有机会与项目主任一起使用这些方法进行实验。 因此，这个项目将展示一种教学方法，将这些当代神经心理学研究方法带入本科实验室。

The purpose of the proposed project is to enhance the student's experience of scientific inquiry in the study of relationships between brain functions and behavior in humans. This goal will be achieved by incorporating contemporary computer-based electroecephalograpic methods, especially measurement of event-related potentials, into our laboratories in biological and experimental psychology. This strategy is based both on the importance of such methods in contemporary research and on the high level of student interest in measuring human brain events and correlating them with behavior. The custom-designed software package, created by an engineer with whom the project has already been extensively discussed, will be written using LabVIEW. This approach will provide software that not only has a convenient user interface, but is also familiar to our students because most will have previously programmed with LabVIEW. Therefore, we will be able to modify the software to address changing needs. Stimuli will be presented by means of a second software package, PsyScope, with which our students are also already familiar. Experiments are planned that introduce students to fundamental event-related potential paradigms - the measurement of the readiness potential preceding motor responses to a predicted stimulus and of the latency or magnitude of the P300 component elicited by visual stimuli. These experiments will be conducted in several different courses. Since students will generally take more than one of these, they will have the opportunity to master the procedures sufficiently to be able to employ them in their own senior research projects. Promising sophomore and junior students will also have the opportunity to work with the project director on experiments employing these methods. Thus, this project will demonstrate a pedagogical approach for bringing these contemporary neuropsychological research methods into undergraduate laboratories.