EEG

Electroencephalogram (‘EEG’) is a non-invasive technique for measuring brain activity. It involves placing small sensors on the head that record changes in potential difference (measured in micro-volts). This electrical activity originates in the brain and therefore provides a unique insight how the brain reacts to external stimuli. It is a completely safe and painless procedure. Click here for more information about how EEG is recorded .

EEG is a particularly useful tool in the discipline of cognitive science, as it can reveal changes in brain state associated with differing levels of arousal or under different experimental conditions. It operates with excellent temporal precision (recording data at a rate of up to 2000 data points per second), and therefore reveals a lot about the chronology of mental processes. Much psychological research is based on measuring the speed and accuracy of participants’ responses, i.e. recording how long it takes to press a button in response to a particular stimulus. EEG can expand upon this method of indexing cognitive processing by showing us what happens in the brain before, during and after a response button is pressed.

Our Research

We have an active EEG research group in the department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield. We use EEG to address a wide-range of questions, including: Does the brain knows (before we do) that we are going to make an error? What changes take place in the brain when we see a target that we’ve been searching for? Why does a cue about the location of a target that comes from someone’s eyes affect the brain differently to a cue that comes from an arrow? How can we apply new types of analysis to identify which areas of the brain are active while we are at rest? We are also interested in using EEG to identify how brain activity differs in those who have developmental disorders (e.g. dyslexia and autism ), and in identifying neurological markers for atypical brain development.

Our Equipment and Skills

The Department of Psychology houses two state-of-the-art high density (128 channel) EEG systems (Biosemi Active II and Electrical Geodiscs). We use a range of techniques to analyse data including; event related potentials (ERPs), dipole modelling, spectral and wavelet analyses, and independent component analysis.

Contact for further information

If you would like further information about EEG research at the University of Sheffield, if you are an academic who would like to collaborate with EEG researchers, or if you are interested in being a volunteer in one of our research projects and experiencing EEG for yourself, please contact Dr Elizabeth Milne .