In this study, we investigated the effect of environmental sounds on ERPs during an auditory task, by having participants perform the same dual task in two different outdoor environments.Participants performed an auditory oddball task while cycling outside both in a quiet park and near a noisy roadway. While biking near the roadway, an increased N1 amplitude was observed when evoked by both standard and target tones. This may be due to attentional processes of enhancing sound processing in the noisier environment. No behavioural differences were found.Future directions include investigating auditory ERPs in more realistic studies outside of laboratory.

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Our results show that the Latte Panda is a low-cost, more portable alternative to a laptop computer for recording EEG data. Such a device will further allow for more portable and mobile EEG experimentation in a wider variety of environments.

NOVEL ODDBALL PARADIGM IN VIRTUAL REALITY 1 Electroencephalography (EEG) research is typically conducted in controlled laboratory settings. This limits the generalizability to real-world situations. Virtual reality (VR) sits as a transitional tool that provides tight experimental control with more realistic stimuli. To test the validity of using VR for eventrelated potential (ERP) research, we used a well-established paradigm, the oddball task. Standard stimuli were presented 80% of the time and target stimuli which were responded to, presented 20% of the time.For our first study we compared traditional to VR stimulus presentation using standard visual and auditory oddball tasks. We found that ERPs collected using VR head mounted displays and typical monitors were comparable on measures of latency, amplitude, and spectral composition. In a second study we implemented a novel depth-based oddball task. We demonstrated that typical oddball ERPs elicited by presentation of near and far stimuli. Interestingly, we observed significant differences in early ERPs components between near and far stimuli, even after controlling for the effects of the oddball task.Current results suggest that VR can serve as a valid means of stimulus presentation in novel or otherwise inaccessible environments for EEG experimentation. We demonstrated the capability of the depth-based oddball to reliably elicit P3 responses, and find an interaction between the depth at which objects are presented and early ERP response. Further research is warranted to better explain this relationship of depth on the ERP components.

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