The photograph above shows Bethel psychology students Jacy
Suttlemyre, Jeff Janzen (Natural Sciences major), and Emma Lewis with
the recording computer and monitor displaying their results for a
psychophysiological recording experiment. The Windows laptop recording
computer is using LabVIEW-based software and receives the physiological
signals via a fiber optic cable from the adjacent research room.There
experiment participants respond to stimuli presented either either with
the software package PsyScopeX
or with Superlab, both
running on a Macintosh computer. This software also signals to the
recording computer when stimuli are presented via a response box with a digital
input/output port (iolab Systems, UK).
Electrical signals from the participant's brain, heart, facial muscles,
etc. are monitored using an innovative new system called ActiveTwo (Cortech
Solutions, Wilmington, NC). The system is battery operated,
protecting human participants. Signals are amplified both in the
electodes themselves and in the main amplifier/converter box. This
system allows us to study human physiological responses
to specific stimuli (e.g. musical exceprts, words, pictures) and to
correlate brain responses with behavioral responses
recorded on the Macintosh.
Experiments on physiological responses to music and to affective
words
as well as to commands of various motor responses are among those
currently being conducted. A number of these studies are closely
related to recent work presented by Bethel students at the National
Conference for Undergraduate Research (see the Bethel
Undergraduate Research Database).
Article about an earlier Bethel ERP system
Partial support for the work described on this Web site was provided by the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education through grant DUE # 9751472 and currently through DUE #0511082.