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:10.7717/peerj.907

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

PeerJ. 2015 Apr 21:3:e907. doi: 10.7717/peerj.907. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Nicholas A Badcock¹, Kathryn A Preece¹, Bianca de Wit¹, Katharine Glenn², Nora Fieder¹, Johnson Thie³, Genevieve McArthur¹

Affiliations

¹ ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University , North Ryde, NSW , Australia ; Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University , North Ryde, NSW , Australia.
² MultiLit , Macquarie Park, NSW , Australia.
³ School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of Sydney , Sydney, NSW , Australia.

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 Emotiv 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 (1,000 Hz) and 100 deviant (1,200 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, N2, and P3 ERP peaks (r = .82 to .95) in both passive and active conditions, and less so, though still strong, for mismatch negativity ERP component (MMN; r = .67 to .74). 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) and their MMN ERP component.

Keywords: Auditory odd-ball; Children; EEG; ERP; Emotiv EPOC; Intraclass correlation; MMN; Methods; Mismatchnegativity; Validation.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by an ARC Centre of Excellence Grant [CE110001021] and an NHMRC equipment grant. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.