AEEG Self Testing

This afternoon I was testing the AEEG recording by my self in the ERP lab. The idea is that you can have your EEG recorded while you are doing thing you normally do in real life. For this purpose, the system is made really small that people can carry it around while being recorded. The system that we are using is called TRACKIT. You can have an idea of its size from the picture.

The motage I used in the testing session is as follows:
Channel 1: Cz
Channel 2: on my left hand (added half way through the recording just for fun)
Referrence: Left mastoid (I used this for reference because it led to weaker eye-blink artifact)
Neutral: Fp1

To maximize the similarity between the recording settings of this session and our past AEP recording sessions, I also played the 2 vs 12 Hz sweep contrast (three 12 Hz sounds followed by one 2 Hz) in the background. I tried playing through earbud earphones, but that somehow screwed up the recording (my guess is that the potentials recorded from the reference site was too strong). So I played the sweeps at a much lower intensity then we had played for our prior participants because I didn't want to piss off people in the nearby rooms.

Other things I noticed that would influence the signals from the non-recording sites:

a. Where you place the amplifier (which connects the electrodes to TRACKIT). Perhaps this influences the electrical noises that get pick up from the empty connectors. For example, when the amplifier touched the desktop, the recording got screwed up.

b.When I touched the cord that connected the amplifier to TRACKIT (either directly with my figer or indirectly with a pen), the recording got messed up as well

c. When I tried to use my macbook (ran on battery) or use mighty mouse, the noises in non-recording channels increased dramatically (sometimes as bad as a and b). However when I reduced the contact surface (for example by covering most of my palm with my sleeve), that helped reduced the distortion in the signal