Acquisition of a High Density EEG Recording System for Research in Cognitive Science

在国家科学基金会的支持下，詹姆斯霍夫曼博士和他的同事将从电气大地测量公司购买128通道事件相关电位（ERP）记录系统。128个通道提供了足够的采样密度，以准确表征头皮上的电压场。ERP在测量脑电活动方面提供了高时间分辨率，远高于PET或fMRI等替代方法，并且所要求仪器的密集测量场将有助于将空间分辨率提高到高标准。该系统将被许多研究人员用于进行各种语言和认知研究。将进行三项主要的试验。第一个目的是照亮威廉氏综合征，一种罕见的遗传缺陷，导致深刻的空间缺陷连同备用的语言能力的儿童的空间组织的性质。这一独特的认知特征非常有趣，因为它提供了理解不同知识系统发展中的崩溃和保留的大脑机制的可能性。结合行为测量记录的ERP将有助于确定威廉姆斯综合征的空间缺陷是由于早期注意过程还是空间位置特有的工作记忆缺陷。相关实验将探讨空间表征缺陷与相对较少的空间语言理解之间的相互作用。第二组实验将提供有关正常成年人负责语言理解不同方面的大脑机制的信息，特别是大脑提取语音特征并将其联合收割机组合成格式良好的音节的能力。第三个实验将研究大脑中数字表征的性质，包括正常成人和儿童的量值表征及其与符号表征的映射。在每一种情况下，ERP方法将允许更好地理解认知能力背后的大脑过程的定位和时间过程，从而推进当前的认知理论。研究人员还将使用该系统来培训本科生和研究生，并将使仪器提供给广泛的研究人员。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. James Hoffman and his colleagues will purchase a 128 channel Event Related Potential (ERP) recording system from Electrical Geodesics Inc. The 128 channels provide a sufficient sampling density to accurately characterize voltage fields on the scalp. ERPs provide high temporal resolution in measuring the electrical activity of the brain, much higher than alternative methods such as PET or fMRI and the dense measuring field of the requested instrumentation will help to bring spatial resolution to a high standard. This system will be used by a number of researchers to pursue a variety of linguistic and cognitive studies. Three main lines of experiments will be pursued. The first is designed to illuminate the nature of spatial organization in children with William's syndrome, a rare genetic defect which results in profound spatial deficits together with spared language ability. This unique cognitive profile is of great interest because it offers the possibility of understanding the brain mechanisms underlying breakdown and sparing in the development of different knowledge systems. ERPs recorded in conjunction with behavioral measures will help determine whether the spatial deficits in Williams syndrome are due to early attentional processes or deficits in working memory that are specific to spatial location. Related experiments will explore the interaction of deficits in spatial representation with relatively spared comprehension of spatial language. The second line of experiments will provide information on the brain mechanisms responsible for different aspects of language comprehension in normal adults, in particular, the brain's ability to extract phonological features and combine them into well-formed syllables. A third line of experiments will examine the nature of numerical representations in the brain, including the representation of magnitudes and their mapping to symbolic representations among normal adults and children. In each of these cases, ERP methodology will allow better understanding of the localization and time course of brain processes underlying cognitive abilities and thus advance current theories of cognition. The researchers will also use the system to train undergraduate and graduate students and will make the instrumentation available to a wide range of researchers.