Electrophysiological Responses to Expectancy Violations in Semantic and Gambling Tasks: A Comparison of Different EEG Reference Approaches

High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in the Right Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Lengthens Sustained Attention in Virtual Reality

Due to the current limitations of three-dimensional (3D) simulation graphics technology, mind wandering commonly occurs in virtual reality tasks, which has impeded it being applied more extensively. The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) plays a vital role in executing continuous two-dimensional (2D) mental paradigms, and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over this cortical region has been shown to successfully modulate sustained 2D attention. Accordingly, we further explored the effects of electrical activation of the rVLPFC on 3D attentional tasks using anodal high-definition (HD)-tDCS. A 3D Go/No-go (GNG) task was developed to compare the after effects of real and sham brain stimulation. Specifically, GNG tasks were periodically interrupted to assess the subjective perception of attentional level, behavioral reactions were tracked and decomposed into an underlying decision cognition process, and electroencephalography data were recorded to calculate event-related potentials (ERPs) in rVLPFC. The p-values statistically indicated that HD-tDCS improved the subjective mentality, led to more cautious decisions, and enhanced neuronal discharging in rVLPFC. Additionally, the neurophysiological P300 ERP component and stimulation being active or sham could effectively predict several objective outcomes. These findings indicate that the comprehensive approach including brain stimulation, 3D mental paradigm, and cross-examined performance could significantly lengthen and robustly compare sustained 3D attention.

Can Social Norms Promote Recycled Water Use on Campus? The Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

The unwillingness of college students to use recycled water has become a key barrier to sewage recycling on campus, and it is critical to strengthen their inclination to do so. This paper used college students in Xi’an as a case study and adopted event-related potential technology to explore the effect of social norms on the willingness to use recycled water and the neural mechanism of cognitive processing. The results suggested the following: (1) The existence of social norms might influence college students’ willingness to use recycled water. (2) When individuals’ willingness to use recycled water is lower than the social norm, there is a bigger feedback-related negative amplitude. (3) College students pay more attention to social norms in groups with closer social distance. These findings can be used to provide a scientific basis for persuading the public to use recycled water from the perspective of the social norm to drive public acceptability.

A Comparative Study of Different EEG Reference Choices for Event-Related Potentials Extracted by Independent Component Analysis

In the event-related potential (ERP) of scalp electroencephalography (EEG) studies, the vertex reference (Cz), linked mastoids or ears (LM), and average reference (AVG) are popular reference methods, and the reference electrode standardization technique (REST) is increasingly applied. Because scalp EEG recordings are considered as spatially degraded signals, independent component analysis (ICA) is a widely used data-driven method for obtaining ERPs by decomposing EEG data. However, the accurate estimation of the differences in ERP components extracted by ICA with different references remains unclear. In this study, we first provided formal descriptions of the above reference methods (Cz, LM, AVG, and REST) and ICA decomposition in ERP and then investigated the influences of different reference techniques on simulation and real EEG datasets. The results revealed that (1) the reference method did not change the peak amplitudes and latencies of relative ERPs corresponding to some IC time courses; (2) there were non-negligible effects of different reference methods on both temporal ERPs and spatial topographies of some ICs; and (3) compared to Cz, LM, and AR, considering both the performances of temporal ERPs and spatial topographies, the REST reference had overall superiority. These findings provide a recommended choice of REST for ICA analysis at the trial level and contribute to empirical investigations regarding the use of reference methods in ERP domains with ICA analysis.