Validation of the Emotiv EPOC EEG system for research quality auditory event-related potentials in children

Nicholas A Badcock; Kathryn A Preece; Bianca de Wit; Katharine Glenn; Nora Fieder; Johnson Thie; Genevieve McArthur

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.593v1

Validation of the Emotiv EPOC EEG system for research quality auditory event-related potentials in children

Nicholas A Badcock ^1,2, Kathryn A Preece^1,2, Bianca de Wit^1,3, Katharine Glenn⁴, Nora Fieder^1,3, Johnson Thie⁵, Genevieve McArthur^1,3

1 ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

2 Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Australia

3 Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

4 MultiLit, Macquarie Park, NSW, Australia

5 School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.593v1

Published: 2014-11-06
Accepted: 2014-11-06

Subject Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Psychology
Keywords: Keywords: EEG, ERP, Emotiv EPOC, Validation, Mismatchnegativity, MMN, Intraclass correlation, Methods, Auditory odd-ball, Children

Copyright: © 2014 Badcock et al.
Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Badcock NA, Preece KA, de Wit B, Glenn K, Fieder N, Thie J, McArthur G. 2014. Validation of the Emotiv EPOC EEG system for research quality auditory event-related potentials in children. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e593v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.593v1

Abstract

Background. Previous work has demonstrated that a commercial gaming electroencephalography (EEG) system, Emotiv EPOC, can be adjusted to provide valid auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in adults that are comparable to ERPs recorded by a research-grade EEG system, Neuroscan. The aim of the current study was to determine if the same was true for children. Method. An adapted Emotive EPOC system and Neuroscan system were used to make simultaneous EEG recordings in nineteen 6- to 12-year-old children under “passive” and “active” listening conditions. In the passive condition, children were instructed to watch a silent DVD and ignore 566 standard (1000 Hz) and 100 deviant (1200 Hz) tones. In the active condition, they listened to the same stimuli, and were asked to count the number of ‘high’ (i.e. deviant) tones. Results. Intraclass correlations (ICCs) indicated that the ERP morphology recorded with the two systems was very similar for the P1, N1, P2, P2, and P3 ERP peaks (r = .78 to .95) in both passive and active conditions, but was poor for the mismatch negativity ERP component (MMN; r < .30). There were few differences between peak amplitude and latency estimates for the two systems. Conclusions. An adapted EPOC EEG system can be used to index children’s late auditory ERP peaks (i.e. P1, N1, P2, N2, P3) but not their MMN ERP component. Subjects: Psychiatry and Psychology Keywords: EEG, ERP, Emotiv EPOC, Validation, Mismatchnegativity, MMN, Intraclass correlation, Methods, Signal processing, Auditory odd-ball, Children

Author Comment

This will be a submission to PeerJ for peer review.

Supplemental Information

Information and Consent form for participants, parent/guardian version

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.593v1/supp-1

Download