An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique

by Steven J. Luck

The event-related potential (ERP) technique in cognitive neuroscience allows scientists to observe human brain activity that reflects specific cognitive processes. In An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique , Steve Luck offers the first comprehensive guide to the practicalities of conducting ERP experiments in cognitive neuroscience and related fields, including affective neuroscience and experimental psychopathology. The book can serve as a guide for the classroom or the laboratory and as a reference for researchers who do not conduct ERP studies themselves but need to understand and evaluate ERP experiments in the literature. 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 the theoretical 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 the world's leading ERP laboratories. These techniques provide an excellent foundation for more advanced approaches and reflect a long history of electrophysiological recordings.

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

Genres: Neuroscience, Science, Psychology, Nonfiction, Reference, Technical, Academic

374 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2005

Reviews

[Clara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Luck is the master carpenter of ERP research, a status secured in part because of this book. It reads like a bedtime story without losing didactic power and includes many helpful diagrams and illustrations. My biggest frustration with the text is that it sometimes lacks citations where I'd like to follow up with a more detailed text. For example, the (mostly excellent) chapter on filtering states that precision in the time domain is inversely related to precision in the frequency domain and gives anecdotal illustrations of this fact; but the mathematical relationship is not described or cited, and I want to see proofs in addition to examples.

[Victoria Mery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad it's done but helpful

[Alien Bookreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t read this whole book, but from what I’ve read and skimmed through I can say it is very comprehensive.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly what the title of the book says it is. I would recommend it to bachelor and master psychology students who are given their first datasets to analyze. It explains the basic principles behind ERPs, as well as pitfalls to avoid, and techniques to apply to improve your analysis. There's almost no math or practical step by step guide in the text, but this you can get elsewhere.

[Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is quite out of date technologically - I didn’t buy the most recent edition because textbooks are insanely expensive. However, it did a great job at explaining ERPs for me, someone who hasn’t done biology or physics in 6 years. Would recommend to anyone on a neuroscience course studying electrophysiology or considering using ERPs for research.

[Silke De Smet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stomme thesis

[Yates Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book introducing the rather odd brain phenomena of the ERP. The book is mostly accessible to anyone with a basic science background and sets a useful basis for this rather strange mechanism and technique.

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

sehr guter Einstieg in ERP-Experimente und auch für erfahrene Experimenter immer wieder gut zur Auffrischung.

[Scott Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful, although this book is overdue for an updated edition. I will refer back to it in the future, I am sure.

[Çağlayan Taybaş · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is full of information enough to learn almost everything about EEG from beginning but it is a little confusing and much detailed.

[Resbecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

not actually a self-help book ;)