Showing posts with label EEG Data Acquisition. Show all posts

Wearable | Pitch Perfect Analysis

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Pitch determines the level of influence on listener perception, physiological arousal, attention, and memory, according to new research published in Human Communication Research (June 2017). Professors at the Communication Department and Department of Translation and Language Sciences at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Institute for Communication Research at Indiana University conducted the joint study to examine intonation’s impact on interpersonal influence with self-report analyses and memory tests.

BIOPAC’s BioNomadix helped the researchers discover the psychophysiological signs of comprehension and autonomic arousal. Physiological data aided the researchers in understanding participant attention, offering an objective analysis of the participant’s experience. Each participant identified as female and listened to both narrative and informative commercials, with varying intonation, while wearing BIOPAC’s technology. The participants' retention and cognitive processing suggest that tone does affect interpersonal influence. Commercials, with a unique level of intonation (or the most varying), proved to have the highest standards of influence. The more varying in pitch or tone, the more likely participants were to process and recall information in the commercials. BIOPAC’s BioNomadix allowed the researchers to record wireless EDA from the participants, capturing electrical responses to communication within participants to improve understandings of effective communication. Specifically, BioNomadix wirelessly recorded response data from a wearable transmitter to measure the arousal and attention of participants by capturing their skin conductance response after exposure to stimuli. This type of research will continue evolving media communication and interpersonal influence systems for anyone interested in effective communication strategies. The study’s breakthrough research offers an incentive for further study into the cognitive processing of audio communication.

Wireless │Monitoring and Comparing Speech Rate Processing

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Child learning to speak playing on cellphone.Many factors remain unknown on how infants acquire language and speech information in their formative years. In a study, researchers Leong et al., addressed the question of what “neural mechanism” infants use when first being introduced to language that allows for their unique “boot-strap language learning” style (Leong et al, 2017). When identifying the neurological workings of language acquisition in adults, it’s believed adults focus on certain aspects of speech, specifically the syllables and phonemes of general speech. In understanding if infants use this same focus (known as multi-time oscillatory analysis) when speech is directed to them, researchers used and compared wireless electroencephalography (EEG) speech frequency measurements between infants and adults by calculating “Phase-locking values” (PLVs). The findings were categorized based on the different speech rates being received by participants. The method consisted of 58 participants made up of 29 infants and their mothers, but when testing, 19 of the infant’s researched provided sufficient data. The stimuli participants were processing during the experiment consisted of seven nursery rhymes familiar to both the child and parent. Since this study was to understand if adults and infants use similar neurological mechanisms, the mothers’ and infants’ EEG were recorded simultaneously and later compared results would reflect infant language processing relative to that of adult. It was recognized that wireless research systems would benefit the accuracy of the study by eliminating uncomfortable, potentially distracting wires around the infants. Utilizing BIOPAC’s BioNomadix dual-channel wireless EEG amplifier paired with MP Research Acquisition System, data from the wireless EEG transmitter was then gathered through AcqKnowledge software, allowing for measurement of the PLVs while participants were processing nursery rhymes. The results found evidence that infants were actually able to neurologically entrain speech better than adults when the rate was 9.3 Hz and 4.5 Hz, almost equally at 1-2 Hz, and less accurately with lower speech rates 0.5 Hz. The researchers specified that due to the results, future findings could further the understanding of the relationship between neural entrainment and language processing in early infants.

Wireless │ Neural Effects of Verbal & Nonverbal Communication

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Person demonstrating nonverbal communication.
In a first-ever study to examine adult-infant neural coupling and characterize its causal architecture, mutual direct gaze was seen to increase adult-infant neural coupling during social communication. Learning requires an individual’s full attention to retain the information being passed along. Attention sharing between people, through verbal spoken communication and nonverbal cues like eye gaze, is known to increase learning as it strengthens the attention amongst the individuals. Nonverbal cues are especially important in infant learning as they rely on them to learn meaning and intention. Little is known, however, about the cognitive processes behind this increased attention and predicting communication success. Victoria Leong, Elizabeth Byrne, Kaili Clackson, Sarah Lam and Sam Wass sought to understand whether gaze during spoken communication influences neural coupling, which would indicate communication success amongst adult and infant pairings. The experiment enlisted twenty-nine infants–fifteen males, and fourteen female–all around eight (8) months old, who interacted with one female adult experimenter. The adult experimenter addressed each infant one at a time and sang nursery rhymes that were familiar (sung at home by parents). The experimenter sang the nursery rhymes in two gaze conditions to each infant, either direct (gaze at infant) or indirect (gaze to the side of infant). EEG was recorded during the nursery rhyme procedure using BioNomadix wireless EEG amplifiers, connected to a MP160 research system. Teh wireless EEG setup was chosen to increase infant comfort and reduce distraction. The results confirmed the experimenters’ hypothesis as directional connectivity between adults and infants was higher during the directional gaze periods compared to the indirect gaze periods. Leong, et al also found that infants influenced adults more, rather than the other way around, over Alpha and Beta neural bands. This study provides a base for which other research can further investigate neural coupling’s effects in learning and other parts of social behavior beyond communication between infants and adults.

Wearable | Visualizing Exercise

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Silhouette of woman doing yoga depicting the visualization of exercise.
I think I’ll go to the gym…

Scientists have long used the power of physiological signals to make inferences about cognitive processes. To bridge the gap between physiology and psychology, exercise scientists often find it interesting to look at a person’s encephalographic brain frequencies (EEG) during settings of physical stress, or namely, exercise. Several studies in the past have aimed to evaluate how the mind operates during strenuous training, but what happens when someone just thinks about exercising?

 Researchers Berk et al. have recently performed a study in which various athletes were asked to simply sit, close their eyes, and visualize themselves in a state of rest while their brains were monitored for EEG activity. Participants then were asked to visualize themselves in a state of heavy exercise or physical training. The researchers monitored the athletes’ brain EEG signals using a B-Alert X10 Telemetry system. What they found was a significant difference in brain state, primarily shown by the disparity in gamma wave frequency between visualizations of exercise and rest settings. These results suggest that mental visualization of complex physical tasks may support the construction of functional neural networks in the brain necessary for performing them. This study opens the door to subsequent research in order to understand more about the psychology of physical activity. BIOPAC Systems offers the wireless B-Alert X10 EEG system as well as other wearable and wireless solutions for psychophysiological and exercise research. These options include Mobita 32 channel wearable EEG and biopotential systems and the BioNomadix line of wireless biopotential and transducer amplifiers. These products have been consistently proven to provide accurate, reliable data whether the person wearing them is on the field training, or sitting at home just thinking about it.

EEG Data Acquisition

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BIOPAC offers a wide range of tools for recording and analyzing human or animal EEG signals. Available hardware includes the EEG100C amplifier, which amplifies bioelectric potentials associated with neuronal activity of the brain and can be used to perform unipolar or bipolar EEG measurements. The amplifier output can be switched between normal EEG and alpha wave detection. The 0.005 Hz HP setting will support Slow Cortical Potential measurement in the EEG. The Alpha detection mode outputs a smoothed wave with a peak indicating maximal alpha activity (signal energy in the 8-13 Hz frequency range).

EEG can now also be recorded from an MRI using the EEG100C-MRI smart amplifier. Data recording is easier and final results are cleaner when using the smart amplifier to derive EEG signals during fMRI or MRI. The unit incorporates advance signal processing to remove spurious MRI artifacts from physiological data. The MRI version of the EEG100C can still be sampled at the same rate as the normal amplifier during recording. This is because the MRI related artifacts are removed from the source, thus still leaving a perfectly recorded EEG signal. 

The amplifier includes a number of helpful features that improve derived EEG signals. There is less sensitivity to electrode and transducer lead placement and improved gain selectability. The unit minimizes computer based real-time or post-processing signal processing for faster data analysis. Cleaner data is available as a real-time analog output for easy analysis. The EEG100C-MRI contains the same functionality as the normal amplifier with the added compatibility with MRI cable and filter sets. 

AcqKnowledge provides powerful EEG analysis solutions. Use AcqKnowledge software to automatically filter raw EEG signal for Alpha, Beta, Theta, and Gamma wave activity and provide full frequency analysis of the data. AcqKnowledge contains powerful EEG analysis that provides a fully automated, epoch driven, analysis of the signal. The software also will remove any EOG artifacts from the signals. 

BIOPAC also offers a suite of wireless EEG solutions for mobile data recording. The Mobita, BioNomadix, and B-Alert X10 units all provide powerful wireless recording alternatives for EEG. The hardware allows for recording of EEG ranging from a single channel to up to 32 channels of data. Combined with AcqKnowledge software, the BIOPAC range of EEG recording products encompasses any need for in-lab recording, real-world and MRI applications. Learn more at EEG Applications http://www.biopac.com/eeg-electroencephalography

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