Low-cost, portable electroencephalography (EEG) devices have become commercially available in the last 10 years. One such system, Emotiv's EPOC, has been modified to allow event-related potential (ERP) research. Although the EPOC has been shown to provide data comparable to research-grade equipment and has been used in real-world settings, how EPOC performs without the electrical shielding, commonly used in research-grade laboratories, is yet to be systematically tested. In the current article we address this gap by conducting a simple EEG experiment in shielded and unshielded contexts. Participants (n = 13, mean age = 23.2 years, SD = 7.9) monitored the presentation of human versus wristwatch faces, responding whether the images were inverted or not. This method elicited the face-sensitive N170 ERP. In both shielded and unshielded contexts, the N170 amplitude was larger when participants viewed human faces and peaked later when a human face was inverted. More importantly, Bayesian analysis showed no difference in the N170 measured in the shielded and unshielded contexts. Further, the signal recorded in both contexts was highly correlated. The EPOC appears to reliably record EEG signals without a purpose-built electrically-shielded room.

中文翻译：

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屏蔽外的 EPOC：比较消费级 EEG 设备在屏蔽和非屏蔽环境中的性能

在过去的 10 年里，低成本的便携式脑电图 (EEG) 设备已经商业化。其中一个这样的系统，Emotiv 的 EPOC，已被修改为允许事件相关电位 (ERP) 研究。尽管 EPOC 已被证明可提供与研究级设备相当的数据，并且已在实际环境中使用，但 EPOC 在没有研究级实验室常用的电气屏蔽的情况下如何运行仍有待系统测试。在当前的文章中，我们通过在屏蔽和非屏蔽环境中进行简单的 EEG 实验来解决这一差距。参与者（n = 13，平均年龄 = 23.2 岁，SD = 7.9）监测人脸与手表脸的表现，对图像是否倒置做出反应。这种方法引发了面部敏感的 N170 ERP。在屏蔽和非屏蔽环境中，当参与者观看人脸时，N170 幅度较大，而当人脸倒置时，N170 幅度较晚达到峰值。更重要的是，贝叶斯分析表明，在屏蔽和非屏蔽环境中测量的 N170 没有差异。此外，在两种情况下记录的信号高度相关。EPOC 似乎可以在没有专门建造的电屏蔽室的情况下可靠地记录 EEG 信号。