Designing and evaluating a system for studying EarEEG signals

Abstract

Electroencephalography (EEG) allows the study of the brain in humans with applications in areas of Psychology, Brain-Computer Interfaces, and Neuromarketing. The conventional systems limit the applications of EEG to lab environments, but recent developments towards portable EEG have allowed brain studies outside the laboratory in more realistic situations. One such direction is the Ear EEG, a wearable concept for recording the EEG using an ear worn device. This paper discusses a system design to study the Ear EEG compared to the scalp EEG using the OpenBCI. We evaluate the signal quality obtained with Ear EEG using a customized earpiece and demonstrate the feasibility of recording alpha attenuation using Ear EEG.