An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique

The event-related potential (ERP) technique in cognitive neuroscience allowsscientists to observe human brain activity that reflects specific cognitive processes. In An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique, Steve Luck offers the firstcomprehensive guide to the practicalities of conducting ERP experiments in cognitive neuroscienceand related fields, including affective neuroscience and experimental psychopathology. The book canserve as a guide for the classroom or the laboratory and as a reference for researchers who do notconduct ERP studies themselves but need to understand and evaluate ERP experiments in theliterature. It summarizes the accumulated body of ERP theory and practice, providing detailed,practical advice about how to design, conduct, and interpret ERP experiments, and presents thetheoretical background needed to understand why an experiment is carried out in a particular way.Luck focuses on the most fundamental techniques, describing them as they are used in many of theworld's leading ERP laboratories. These techniques reflect a long history of electrophysiologicalrecordings and provide an excellent foundation for more advanced approaches.

Thebook also provides advice on the key topic of how to design ERP experiments so that they will beuseful in answering questions of broad scientific interest. This reflects the increasing proportionof ERP research that focuses on these broader questions rather than the "ERPology" of early studies,which concentrated primarily on ERP components and methods. Topics covered include the neuralorigins of ERPs, signal averaging, artifact rejection and correction, filtering, measurement andanalysis, localization, and the practicalities of setting up the lab.

Steven J. Luck is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. A leading authority on ERP research, he leads ERP Boot Camps that provide ERP training to researchers from around the world.