Progress in the study of emotion and emotion regulation has increasingly been informed by neuroscientific methods. This article focuses on two components of the event-related potential (ERP)--the P300 and the late positive potential (LPP)--and how they can be used to understand the interaction between the more automatic and controlled processing of emotional stimuli. Research is reviewed exploring: the dynamics of emotional response as indexed at early and late latencies; neurobiological correlates of emotional response; individual and developmental differences; ways in which the LPP can be utilized as a measure of emotion regulation. Future directions for the application of ERP/electroencephalogram (EEG) in achieving a more complete understanding of emotional processing and its regulation are presented.

The ERN is a negative deflection in the event-related potential that peaks approximately 50 ms after the commission of an error. The ERN is thought to reflect early error-processing activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). First, we review current functional, neurobiological, and developmental data on the ERN. Next, the ERN is discussed in terms of three psychiatric disorders characterized by abnormal response monitoring: anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse. These data indicate that increased and decreased error-related brain activity is associated with the internalizing and externalizing dimensions of psychopathology, respectively. Recent data further suggest that abnormal error-processing indexed by the ERN indexes trait- but not state-related symptoms, especially related to anxiety. Overall, these data point to utility of ERN in studying risk for psychiatric disorders, and are discussed in terms of the endophenotype construct.

The error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) are increasingly being examined as neural correlates of response monitoring. The minimum number of error trials included in grand averages varies across studies; indeed, there has not been a systematic investigation on the number of trials required to obtain a stable ERN and Pe. In the current study, the ERN and Pe were quantified as two random trials were added to participants' (N=53) ERP averages. Adding trials increased the correlation with the grand average ERN and Pe; however, high correlations (rs>.80) were obtained with only 6 trials. Internal reliability of the ERN and Pe reached moderate levels after 6 and 2 trials and the signal-to-noise ratio of the ERN and Pe did not change after 8 and 4 trials, respectively. Combined, these data suggest that the ERN and Pe can be quantified using a minimum of between 6 and 8 error trials.

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