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. 2023 Jul 24;9(8):e18433.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18433. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Crowdsourced EEG experiments: A proof of concept for remote EEG acquisition using EmotivPRO Builder and EmotivLABS

Nikolas S Williams  1   2 , William King  2 , Geoffrey Mackellar  2 , Roshini Randeniya  2 , Alicia McCormick  2 , Nicholas A Badcock  1   3
Affiliations

Crowdsourced EEG experiments: A proof of concept for remote EEG acquisition using EmotivPRO Builder and EmotivLABS

Nikolas S Williams et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

The development of online research platforms has made data collection more efficient and representative of populations. However, these benefits have not been available for use with cognitive neuroscience tools such as electroencephalography (EEG). In this study, we introduce an approach for remote EEG data collection. We demonstrate how an experiment can be built via the EmotivPRO Builder and deployed to the EmotivLABS website where it can be completed by participants who own EMOTIV EEG headsets. To demonstrate the data collection technique, we collected EEG while participants engaged in a resting state task where participants sat with their eyes open and then eyes closed for 2 min each. We observed a significant difference in alpha power between the two conditions thereby demonstrating the well-known alpha suppression effect. Thus, we demonstrate that EEG data collection, particularly for frequency domain analysis, can be successfully conducted online.

Keywords: EPOC; Emotiv; Experiment builder; Insight; Online testing; Portable EEG; Remote EEG.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Williams, King, Mackellar, Randeniya, and McCormick are employed by Emotiv. At the time of conception and data collection for this study, Williams and Badcock were supported by an industry partnership grant [No. 83673928] between 10.13039/501100001230Macquarie University and Emotiv Research Pty Ltd.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Demographic profile of participants. A) Age distribution and B) Gender frequency of participants are shown above.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Alpha suppression (between Eyes Open and Eyes Closed) conditions can be observed in the global mean (i.e., alpha power averaged over all electrodes) for A) INSIGHT and B) EPOC headsets. Violin plots show a density curve (blue outline) with each dot representing an individual participant. Boxplots show median and interquartile ranges and min and max values. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Topographical alpha power distributions measured by Insight (A and B) and EPOC (C and D) in the Eyes Open (left column) and Eyes Closed (right column) conditions.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Alpha suppression (between Eyes Open and Eyes Closed) conditions can be observed at posterior electrodes Pz of INSIGHT(A), O1 of EPOC (B), and O2 of EPOC (C). Violin plots show a density curve (blue outline) with each dot representing an individual participant. Boxplots show median and interquartile ranges and min and max values. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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