Trial-to-Trial Variability of Single Potentials: Methodological Concepts and Results

Abstract

Variability of single visual evoked potentials was investigated by means of three statistical tests sensitive to amplitude variations, gradual changes, and latency jitter, respectively. In a sample of (n = 78) normal children, a considerable number of inhomogeneous responders was found, and most prominent were gradual potential changes and latency jitter. Removal of latency jitter demonstrated that the gradual changes are not of latency type and only partly of the amplitude type. As found from empirical densities, there is strong indication that there were subpopulations differing in their response style. On the whole, however, it was concluded that there was no clear, interindividually stable type of response variation in these data.

Analysis of stimulus-related activity in rat auditory cortex using complex spectral coefficients

“…C: the median raw data across animals, replotted from Fig. 6. it is now well established that this model can result in a poor estimate of the evoked response, whose amplitude and latency can vary considerably from trial to trial (D'Avanzo et al 2011;Lange et al 1997;Mocks et al 1987;Truccolo et al 2002). Nevertheless, the most common method for computing the induced response component continues to be subtraction of the time-domain evoked response from single-trial responses (e.g., Crone et al 2001;Steinschneider et al 2008;Trautner et al 2006).…”

The spatiotemporal MEG covariance matrix modeled as a sum of Kronecker products

“…This is a simplification, as is illustrated by the alpha rhythm: the amount of alpha activity relative to other spontaneous activity is not equally distributed over the head. The second point of debate is trial-to-trial variations, which have been discussed in literature (Coppola et al, 1978;Duann et al, 2002;Gasser et al, 1983;Jaşkowski and Verleger, 1999;Laskaris et al, 2003;Makinen et al, 2005;Mocks et al, 1987;Pham et al, 1987 …”

A classification-based method to estimate event-related potentials from single trial EEG

“…(8). However, the general intelligent optimization algorithms do not consider the special characteristics of this model.…”

“…These two assumptions are not strictly valid. In addition, studies on the trial-to-trial variability of ERPs are required in neuro-physiological science, cognitive neuroscience and psychology [8,9]. This aim cannot be met by SA.…”

“…In 1967, Woody proposed a signal model describing the change of amplitude and latency from trial to trial and designed the match filter that might estimate latency of event related activities from single trial EEG [10]. Woody's thinking was expanded in subsequent works to consider the change of amplitudes of ERPs components so that the amplitude and latency of each trial could be estimated as parameters in a maximum likelihood framework [3,4,8,9,11]. A two-stage Bayesian method to estimate single trial ERPs was also proposed [12].…”