Auto-generating Epochs metadata

This tutorial shows how to auto-generate metadata for Epochs, based on events via mne.epochs.make_metadata.

We are going to use data from the ERP CORE Dataset (derived from 1). This is EEG data from a single participant performing an active visual task (Eriksen flanker task).

Note

If you wish to skip the introductory parts of this tutorial, you may jump straight to Applying the knowledge: visualizing the ERN component after completing the data import and event creation in the Preparation section.

This tutorial is loosely divided into two parts:

  1. We will first focus on producing ERP time-locked to the visual stimulation, conditional on response correctness and response time in order to familiarize ourselves with the make_metadata function.

  2. After that, we will calculate ERPs time-locked to the responses – again, conditional on response correctness – to visualize the error-related negativity (ERN), i.e. the ERP component associated with incorrect behavioral responses.

Preparation

Let’s start by reading, filtering, and producing a simple visualization of the raw data. The data is pretty clean and contains very few blinks, so there’s no need to apply sophisticated preprocessing and data cleaning procedures. We will also convert the Annotations contained in this dataset to events by calling mne.events_from_annotations.

from pathlib import Path
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import mne


data_dir = Path(mne.datasets.erp_core.data_path())
infile = data_dir / 'ERP-CORE_Subject-001_Task-Flankers_eeg.fif'

raw = mne.io.read_raw(infile, preload=True)
raw.filter(l_freq=0.1, h_freq=40)
raw.plot(start=60)

# extract events
all_events, all_event_id = mne.events_from_annotations(raw)
40 autogenerate metadata

Out:

Opening raw data file /home/circleci/mne_data/MNE-ERP-CORE-data/ERP-CORE_Subject-001_Task-Flankers_eeg.fif...
    Range : 0 ... 935935 =      0.000 ...   913.999 secs
Ready.
Reading 0 ... 935935  =      0.000 ...   913.999 secs...
Filtering raw data in 1 contiguous segment
Setting up band-pass filter from 0.1 - 40 Hz

FIR filter parameters
---------------------
Designing a one-pass, zero-phase, non-causal bandpass filter:
- Windowed time-domain design (firwin) method
- Hamming window with 0.0194 passband ripple and 53 dB stopband attenuation
- Lower passband edge: 0.10
- Lower transition bandwidth: 0.10 Hz (-6 dB cutoff frequency: 0.05 Hz)
- Upper passband edge: 40.00 Hz
- Upper transition bandwidth: 10.00 Hz (-6 dB cutoff frequency: 45.00 Hz)
- Filter length: 33793 samples (33.001 sec)

Used Annotations descriptions: ['response/left', 'response/right', 'stimulus/compatible/target_left', 'stimulus/compatible/target_right', 'stimulus/incompatible/target_left', 'stimulus/incompatible/target_right']

Creating metadata from events

The basics of make_metadata

Now it’s time to think about the time windows to use for epoching and metadata generation. It is important to understand that these time windows need not be the same! That is, the automatically generated metadata might include information about events from only a fraction of the epochs duration; or it might include events that occurred well outside a given epoch.

Let us look at a concrete example. In the Flankers task of the ERP CORE dataset, participants were required to respond to visual stimuli by pressing a button. We’re interested in looking at the visual evoked responses (ERPs) of trials with correct responses. Assume that based on literature studies, we decide that responses later than 1500 ms after stimulus onset are to be considered invalid, because they don’t capture the neuronal processes of interest here. We can approach this in the following way with the help of mne.epochs.make_metadata:

# metadata for each epoch shall include events from the range: [0.0, 1.5] s,
# i.e. starting with stimulus onset and expanding beyond the end of the epoch
metadata_tmin, metadata_tmax = 0.0, 1.5

# auto-create metadata
# this also returns a new events array and an event_id dictionary. we'll see
# later why this is important
metadata, events, event_id = mne.epochs.make_metadata(
    events=all_events, event_id=all_event_id,
    tmin=metadata_tmin, tmax=metadata_tmax, sfreq=raw.info['sfreq'])

# let's look at what we got!
metadata
event_name response/left response/right stimulus/compatible/target_left stimulus/compatible/target_right stimulus/incompatible/target_left stimulus/incompatible/target_right
0 response/right NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
1 response/right NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
2 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.551758 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
3 response/left 0.000000 NaN 0.997070 NaN NaN NaN
4 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.434570 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
797 response/left 0.000000 1.343750 NaN NaN NaN 0.917969
798 stimulus/incompatible/target_right NaN 0.425781 1.416016 NaN NaN 0.000000
799 response/right 1.392578 0.000000 0.990234 NaN NaN NaN
800 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.402344 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
801 response/left 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

802 rows × 7 columns



Specifying time-locked events

We can see that the generated table has 802 rows, each one corresponding to an individual event in all_events. The first column, event_name, contains the name of the respective event around which the metadata of that specific column was generated – we’ll call that the “time-locked event”, because we’ll assign it time point zero.

The names of the remaining columns correspond to the event names specified in the all_event_id dictionary. These columns contain floats; the values represent the latency of that specific event in seconds, relative to the time-locked event (the one mentioned in the event_name column). For events that didn’t occur within the given time window, you’ll see a value of NaN, simply indicating that no event latency could be extracted.

Now, there’s a problem here. We want investigate the visual ERPs only, conditional on responses. But the metadata that was just created contains one row for every event, including responses. While we could create epochs for all events, allowing us to pass those metadata, and later subset the created events, there’s a more elegant way to handle things: make_metadata has a row_events parameter that allows us to specify for which events to create metadata rows, while still creating columns for all events in the event_id dictionary.

Because the metadata, then, only pertains to a subset of our original events, it’s important to keep the returned events and event_id around for later use when we’re actually going to create our epochs, to ensure that metadata, events, and event descriptions stay in sync.

row_events = ['stimulus/compatible/target_left',
              'stimulus/compatible/target_right',
              'stimulus/incompatible/target_left',
              'stimulus/incompatible/target_right']

metadata, events, event_id = mne.epochs.make_metadata(
    events=all_events, event_id=all_event_id,
    tmin=metadata_tmin, tmax=metadata_tmax, sfreq=raw.info['sfreq'],
    row_events=row_events)

metadata
event_name response/left response/right stimulus/compatible/target_left stimulus/compatible/target_right stimulus/incompatible/target_left stimulus/incompatible/target_right
2 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.551758 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
4 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.434570 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
6 stimulus/incompatible/target_right NaN 0.508789 NaN NaN NaN 0.00000
8 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.503906 NaN 0.000000 NaN 1.449219 NaN
10 stimulus/incompatible/target_left 0.542969 NaN NaN NaN 0.000000 NaN
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
792 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.496094 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN
794 stimulus/compatible/target_left NaN 1.437500 0.000000 NaN 1.465820 NaN
796 stimulus/incompatible/target_left 0.547852 NaN NaN NaN 0.000000 1.46582
798 stimulus/incompatible/target_right NaN 0.425781 1.416016 NaN NaN 0.00000
800 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.402344 NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN

400 rows × 7 columns



Keeping only the first events of a group

The metadata now contains 400 rows – one per stimulation – and the same number of columns as before. Great!

We have two types of responses in our data: response/left and response/right. We would like to map those to “correct” and “incorrect”. To make this easier, we can ask make_metadata to generate an entirely new column that refers to the first response observed during the given time interval. This works by passing a subset of the hierarchical event descriptors (HEDs, inspired by 2) used to name events via the keep_first parameter. For example, in the case of the HEDs response/left and response/right, we could pass keep_first='response' to generate a new column, response, containing the latency of the respective event. This value pertains only the first (or, in this specific example: the only) response, regardless of side (left or right). To indicate which event type (here: response side) was matched, a second column is added: first_response. The values in this column are the event types without the string used for matching, as it is already encoded as the column name, i.e. in our example, we expect it to only contain 'left' and 'right'.

keep_first = 'response'
metadata, events, event_id = mne.epochs.make_metadata(
    events=all_events, event_id=all_event_id,
    tmin=metadata_tmin, tmax=metadata_tmax, sfreq=raw.info['sfreq'],
    row_events=row_events,
    keep_first=keep_first)

# visualize response times regardless of side
metadata['response'].plot.hist(bins=50, title='Response Times')

# the "first_response" column contains only "left" and "right" entries, derived
# from the initial event named "response/left" and "response/right"
print(metadata['first_response'])
Response Times

Out:

2       left
4       left
6      right
8       left
10      left
       ...
792     left
794    right
796     left
798    right
800     left
Name: first_response, Length: 400, dtype: object

We’re facing a similar issue with the stimulus events, and now there are not only two, but four different types: stimulus/compatible/target_left, stimulus/compatible/target_right, stimulus/incompatible/target_left, and stimulus/incompatible/target_right. Even more, because in the present paradigm stimuli were presented in rapid succession, sometimes multiple stimulus events occurred within the 1.5 second time window we’re using to generate our metadata. See for example:

metadata.loc[metadata['stimulus/compatible/target_left'].notna() &
             metadata['stimulus/compatible/target_right'].notna(),
             :]
event_name response/left response/right stimulus/compatible/target_left stimulus/compatible/target_right stimulus/incompatible/target_left stimulus/incompatible/target_right response first_response
24 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.411133 NaN 0.000000 1.416016 NaN NaN 0.411133 left
38 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.454102 1.500000 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.454102 right
66 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.443359 1.466797 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.443359 right
70 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.400391 NaN 0.000000 1.499023 NaN NaN 0.400391 left
186 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.584961 1.449219 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.584961 right
226 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.421875 NaN 0.000000 1.450195 NaN NaN 0.421875 left
232 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.399414 NaN 0.000000 1.416016 NaN NaN 0.399414 left
290 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.316406 NaN 0.000000 1.499023 NaN NaN 0.316406 left
316 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.416992 NaN 0.000000 1.416992 NaN NaN 0.416992 left
344 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.386719 NaN 0.000000 1.450195 NaN NaN 0.386719 left
366 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.410156 1.450195 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.410156 right
384 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.467773 NaN 0.000000 1.416992 NaN NaN 0.467773 left
416 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.377930 NaN 0.000000 1.483398 NaN NaN 0.377930 left
454 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.457031 1.483398 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.457031 right
456 stimulus/compatible/target_left NaN 0.566406 0.000000 1.465820 NaN NaN 0.566406 right
464 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.395508 NaN 0.000000 1.449219 NaN NaN 0.395508 left
510 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.354492 NaN 0.000000 1.483398 NaN NaN 0.354492 left
516 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.326172 1.432617 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.326172 right
538 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.322266 1.482422 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.322266 right
606 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.484375 NaN 0.000000 1.483398 NaN NaN 0.484375 left
652 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.371094 NaN 0.000000 1.500000 NaN NaN 0.371094 left
692 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.342773 NaN 0.000000 1.466797 NaN NaN 0.342773 left
704 stimulus/compatible/target_right NaN 0.307617 1.449219 0.000000 NaN NaN 0.307617 right
706 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.442383 NaN 0.000000 1.466797 NaN NaN 0.442383 left
728 stimulus/compatible/target_left 0.376953 NaN 0.000000 1.449219 NaN NaN 0.376953 left


This can easily lead to confusion during later stages of processing, so let’s create a column for the first stimulus – which will always be the time-locked stimulus, as our time interval starts at 0 seconds. We can pass a list of strings to keep_first.

keep_first = ['stimulus', 'response']
metadata, events, event_id = mne.epochs.make_metadata(
    events=all_events, event_id=all_event_id,
    tmin=metadata_tmin, tmax=metadata_tmax, sfreq=raw.info['sfreq'],
    row_events=row_events,
    keep_first=keep_first)

# all times of the time-locked events should be zero
assert all(metadata['stimulus'] == 0)

# the values in the new "first_stimulus" and "first_response" columns indicate
# which events were selected via "keep_first"
metadata[['first_stimulus', 'first_response']]
first_stimulus first_response
2 compatible/target_left left
4 compatible/target_left left
6 incompatible/target_right right
8 compatible/target_left left
10 incompatible/target_left left
... ... ...
792 compatible/target_left left
794 compatible/target_left right
796 incompatible/target_left left
798 incompatible/target_right right
800 compatible/target_left left

400 rows × 2 columns



Adding new columns to describe stimulation side and response correctness

Perfect! Now it’s time to define which responses were correct and incorrect. We first add a column encoding the side of stimulation, and then simply check whether the response matches the stimulation side, and add this result to another column.

# left-side stimulation
metadata.loc[metadata['first_stimulus'].isin(['compatible/target_left',
                                              'incompatible/target_left']),
             'stimulus_side'] = 'left'

# right-side stimulation
metadata.loc[metadata['first_stimulus'].isin(['compatible/target_right',
                                              'incompatible/target_right']),
             'stimulus_side'] = 'right'

# first assume all responses were incorrect, then mark those as correct where
# the stimulation side matches the response side
metadata['response_correct'] = False
metadata.loc[metadata['stimulus_side'] == metadata['first_response'],
             'response_correct'] = True


correct_response_count = metadata['response_correct'].sum()
print(f'Correct responses: {correct_response_count}\n'
      f'Incorrect responses: {len(metadata) - correct_response_count}')

Out:

Correct responses: 346
Incorrect responses: 54

Creating Epochs with metadata, and visualizing ERPs

It’s finally time to create our epochs! We set the metadata directly on instantiation via the metadata parameter. Also it is important to remember to pass events and event_id as returned from make_metadata, as we only created metadata for a subset of our original events by passing row_events. Otherwise, the length of the metadata and the number of epochs would not match and MNE-Python would raise an error.

epochs_tmin, epochs_tmax = -0.1, 0.4  # epochs range: [-0.1, 0.4] s
reject = {'eeg': 250e-6}  # exclude epochs with strong artifacts
epochs = mne.Epochs(raw=raw, tmin=epochs_tmin, tmax=epochs_tmax,
                    events=events, event_id=event_id, metadata=metadata,
                    reject=reject, preload=True)

Out:

Adding metadata with 13 columns
Replacing existing metadata with 13 columns
400 matching events found
Setting baseline interval to [-0.099609375, 0.0] sec
Applying baseline correction (mode: mean)
0 projection items activated
Loading data for 400 events and 513 original time points ...
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
9 bad epochs dropped

Lastly, let’s visualize the ERPs evoked by the visual stimulation, once for all trials with correct responses, and once for all trials with correct responses and a response time greater than 0.5 seconds (i.e., slow responses).

vis_erp = epochs['response_correct'].average()
vis_erp_slow = epochs['(not response_correct) & '
                      '(response > 0.3)'].average()

fig, ax = plt.subplots(2, figsize=(6, 6))
vis_erp.plot(gfp=True, spatial_colors=True, axes=ax[0])
vis_erp_slow.plot(gfp=True, spatial_colors=True, axes=ax[1])
ax[0].set_title('Visual ERPs – All Correct Responses')
ax[1].set_title('Visual ERPs – Slow Correct Responses')
fig.tight_layout()
fig
Visual ERPs – All Correct Responses, Visual ERPs – Slow Correct Responses

Out:

/home/circleci/project/tutorials/epochs/40_autogenerate_metadata.py:274: UserWarning: This figure includes Axes that are not compatible with tight_layout, so results might be incorrect.
  fig.tight_layout()

Aside from the fact that the data for the (much fewer) slow responses looks noisier – which is entirely to be expected – not much of an ERP difference can be seen.

Applying the knowledge: visualizing the ERN component

In the following analysis, we will use the same dataset as above, but we’ll time-lock our epochs to the response events, not to the stimulus onset. Comparing ERPs associated with correct and incorrect behavioral responses, we should be able to see the error-related negativity (ERN) in the difference wave.

Since we want to time-lock our analysis to responses, for the automated metadata generation we’ll consider events occurring up to 1500 ms before the response trigger.

We only wish to consider the last stimulus and response in each time window: Remember that we’re dealing with rapid stimulus presentations in this paradigm; taking the last response – at time point zero – and the last stimulus – the one closest to the response – ensures we actually create the right stimulus-response pairings. We can achieve this by passing the keep_last parameter, which works exactly like keep_first we got to know above, only that it keeps the last occurrences of the specified events and stores them in columns whose names start with last_.

Exactly like in the previous example, create new columns stimulus_side and response_correct.

# left-side stimulation
metadata.loc[metadata['last_stimulus'].isin(['compatible/target_left',
                                             'incompatible/target_left']),
             'stimulus_side'] = 'left'

# right-side stimulation
metadata.loc[metadata['last_stimulus'].isin(['compatible/target_right',
                                             'incompatible/target_right']),
             'stimulus_side'] = 'right'

# first assume all responses were incorrect, then mark those as correct where
# the stimulation side matches the response side
metadata['response_correct'] = False
metadata.loc[metadata['stimulus_side'] == metadata['last_response'],
             'response_correct'] = True

metadata
event_name response/left response/right stimulus/compatible/target_left stimulus/compatible/target_right stimulus/incompatible/target_left stimulus/incompatible/target_right stimulus response last_stimulus last_response stimulus_side response_correct
0 response/right NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN 0.000000 None right NaN False
1 response/right NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN 0.000000 None right NaN False
3 response/left 0.000000 NaN -0.551758 NaN NaN NaN -0.551758 0.000000 compatible/target_left left left True
5 response/left -1.431641 NaN -0.434570 NaN NaN NaN -0.434570 -1.431641 compatible/target_left left left True
7 response/right NaN 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN -0.508789 -0.508789 0.000000 incompatible/target_right right right True
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
793 response/left 0.000000 -1.496094 -0.496094 NaN NaN NaN -0.496094 0.000000 compatible/target_left left left True
795 response/right NaN 0.000000 -1.437500 NaN NaN NaN -1.437500 0.000000 compatible/target_left right left False
797 response/left 0.000000 -0.576172 NaN NaN -0.547852 NaN -0.547852 0.000000 incompatible/target_left left left True
799 response/right -1.343750 0.000000 NaN NaN NaN -0.425781 -0.425781 0.000000 incompatible/target_right right right True
801 response/left 0.000000 -1.392578 -0.402344 NaN NaN NaN -0.402344 0.000000 compatible/target_left left left True

402 rows × 13 columns



Now it’s already time to epoch the data! When deciding upon the epochs duration for this specific analysis, we need to ensure we see quite a bit of signal from before and after the motor response. We also must be aware of the fact that motor-/muscle-related signals will most likely be present before the response button trigger pulse appears in our data, so the time period close to the response event should not be used for baseline correction. But at the same time, we don’t want to use a baseline period that extends too far away from the button event. The following values seem to work quite well.

Out:

Adding metadata with 13 columns
Replacing existing metadata with 13 columns
402 matching events found
Applying baseline correction (mode: mean)
0 projection items activated
Loading data for 402 events and 1025 original time points ...
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'F7', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F7', 'F8', 'FC4']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FC3', 'F4', 'FC4']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2', 'F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'F3', 'F7', 'FC3', 'C3', 'C5', 'P3', 'CPz', 'Fz', 'F4', 'F8', 'FC4', 'FCz', 'Cz', 'C4', 'P4']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2', 'F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP1', 'FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['FP2', 'F8']
    Rejecting  epoch based on EEG : ['F8']
36 bad epochs dropped

Let’s do a final sanity check: we want to make sure that in every row, we actually have a stimulus. We use epochs.metadata (and not metadata) because when creating the epochs, we passed the reject parameter, and MNE-Python always ensures that epochs.metadata stays in sync with the available epochs.

epochs.metadata.loc[epochs.metadata['last_stimulus'].isna(), :]
event_name response/left response/right stimulus/compatible/target_left stimulus/compatible/target_right stimulus/incompatible/target_left stimulus/incompatible/target_right stimulus response last_stimulus last_response stimulus_side response_correct
0 response/right NaN 0.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN 0.0 None right NaN False
1 response/right NaN 0.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN 0.0 None right NaN False


Bummer! It seems the very first two responses were recorded before the first stimulus appeared: the values in the stimulus column are None. There is a very simple way to select only those epochs that do have a stimulus (i.e., are not None):

epochs = epochs['last_stimulus.notna()']

Time to calculate the ERPs for correct and incorrect responses. For visualization, we’ll only look at sensor FCz, which is known to show the ERN nicely in the given paradigm. We’ll also create a topoplot to get an impression of the average scalp potentials measured in the first 100 ms after an incorrect response.

resp_erp_correct = epochs['response_correct'].average()
resp_erp_incorrect = epochs['not response_correct'].average()

mne.viz.plot_compare_evokeds({'Correct Response': resp_erp_correct,
                              'Incorrect Response': resp_erp_incorrect},
                             picks='FCz', show_sensors=True,
                             title='ERPs at FCz, time-locked to response')

# topoplot of average field from time 0.0-0.1 s
resp_erp_incorrect.plot_topomap(times=0.05, average=0.05, size=3,
                                title='Avg. topography 0–100 ms after '
                                      'incorrect responses')
  • ERPs at FCz, time-locked to response
  • Avg. topography 0–100 ms after incorrect responses, 0.050 s, µV

We can see a strong negative deflection immediately after incorrect responses, compared to correct responses. The topoplot, too, leaves no doubt: what we’re looking at is, in fact, the ERN.

Some researchers suggest to construct the difference wave between ERPs for correct and incorrect responses, as it more clearly reveals signal differences, while ideally also improving the signal-to-noise ratio (under the assumption that the noise level in “correct” and “incorrect” trials is similar). Let’s do just that and put it into a publication-ready visualization.

# difference wave: incorrect minus correct responses
resp_erp_diff = mne.combine_evoked([resp_erp_incorrect, resp_erp_correct],
                                   weights=[1, -1])

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
resp_erp_diff.plot(picks='FCz', axes=ax, selectable=False, show=False)

# make ERP trace bolder
ax.lines[0].set_linewidth(1.5)

# add lines through origin
ax.axhline(0, ls='dotted', lw=0.75, color='gray')
ax.axvline(0, ls=(0, (10, 10)), lw=0.75, color='gray',
           label='response trigger')

# mark trough
trough_time_idx = resp_erp_diff.copy().pick('FCz').data.argmin()
trough_time = resp_erp_diff.times[trough_time_idx]
ax.axvline(trough_time, ls=(0, (10, 10)), lw=0.75, color='red',
           label='max. negativity')

# legend, axis labels, title
ax.legend(loc='lower left')
ax.set_xlabel('Time (s)', fontweight='bold')
ax.set_ylabel('Amplitude (µV)', fontweight='bold')
ax.set_title('Channel: FCz')
fig.suptitle('ERN (Difference Wave)', fontweight='bold')

fig
ERN (Difference Wave), Channel: FCz

References

1

Emily S. Kappenman, Jaclyn L. Farrens, Wendy Zhang, Andrew X. Stewart, and Steven J. Luck. ERP CORE: an open resource for human event-related potential research. NeuroImage, 225:117465, 2021. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117465.

2

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Total running time of the script: ( 0 minutes 25.161 seconds)

Estimated memory usage: 434 MB

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