EEG-Lab
The EEG-Lab is located in one of the specially built laboratory rooms, with a galvanically isolated, soundproof recording/experiment room and an adjacent control room.
Electrical fields that reflect brain activity can be recorded with electrodes on the head surface. A continuous recording is called EEG (electroencephalogram) while responses to events are called ERPs (Event Related Potentials). ERPs are used in cognitive sciences including linguistics to measure brain responses to events such as sounds, pictures, words, or even actions. They are used to study neural mechanisms of language, perception, attention, memory, emotions, etc.
ERPs are sensitive to many linguistically relevant dimensions: changes in a repeated sound, word frequency, and unexpected features of sentences, both at grammatical and semantic level. ERPs are specially suited for investigating detailed timing of neural processes: words can be studied from the first low level responses 100 milliseconds after word fixation, to long latency waves reflecting semantic deviations and memory at half a second later.
The facilities at the Phonetics Lab offer high density EEG recordings with 128 electrodes, and electrically shielded room. The equipment used, with its easily applied sensor nets, is specially suited for sensitive subjects such as patients, children or infants.
Current research projects at the lab investigate mechanisms of semantic re-analysis, early language development, longitudinal semantic development among children, and evaluation of interventions for hearing impaired children.
Last updated:
January 18, 2012
Page editor:
Ulla Bjursäter
Source: Department of Linguistics/Phonetics Lab
