Lecturer: Marius Klug
Fields: Neuroscience, Psychology
Content
This course provides an introduction to psychophysiology — the study of how psychological phenomena are expressed in, and can be revealed through, physiological signals. Starting from the historical roots of the field and the basic anatomy of the nervous system, the course builds up to the practical measurement and analysis of peripheral and central physiological signals. Participants will learn how biosignals are recorded, digitized, and processed, how to design psychophysiological experiments that avoid common pitfalls, and how specific measures — electromyography, electrodermal activity, electrocardiography, and electroencephalography — relate to psychological states. No prior background in physiology or signal processing is assumed.
Session 1: Introduction, Nervous System, and Measurement.
From the earliest attempts to diagnose lovesickness by pulse to Hans Berger\’s first human EEG recording, this session traces how psychophysiology became a scientific discipline. It then covers the structural and functional organization of the nervous system and the anatomy of the brain relevant to psychophysiological measures. The second half introduces the fundamentals of biosignal measurement: electrode types and placement, bipolar versus unipolar recording, digitization, spectral analysis, and digital filtering.
Session 2: Psychophysiological Experimentation.
This session teaches you to think like an experimental scientist. It covers experimental design as it applies specifically to psychophysiology. Starting from general principles — variables, operationalization, confounds — it addresses the particular challenges of psychophysiological inference, where the independent variable is a psychological state and the dependent variable a physiological measure. Topics include within- versus between-subjects designs and their trade-offs, serial dependency, continuous versus event-related analysis, epoching and ERP averaging, and the identification and control of external and internal artifacts.
Session 3: Peripheral Physiology (EMG, EDA, ECG).
This session covers three peripheral psychophysiological measures. Electromyography (EMG): the physiology of motor units, recording of surface EMG, and EMG signal processing. Electrodermal activity (EDA): eccrine sweat gland physiology and innervation, skin conductance measurement, and the distinction between tonic skin conductance level and phasic skin conductance responses. Electrocardiography (ECG): cardiac physiology, the ECG waveform, and the extraction of heart rate and heart rate variability, including spectral HRV analysis as a window into sympathetic–parasympathetic balance.
Session 4: Electroencephalography (EEG).
This session covers the physiological origins of EEG, EEG electrode placement and measurement, and the major analysis approaches: frequency domain analysis (spectral power in canonical bands such as alpha, theta, and mu, with examples from motor imagery and workload paradigms), time domain analysis (event-related potentials, epoching, difference waves, and topographic mapping), time-frequency analysis (event-related spectral perturbation), and time-time analysis (ERP images).
Literature
- Gramann, K., & Schandry, R. (2009). Psychophysiologie (4th ed.). Basel, Switzerland: Beltz.
Lecturer
Marius Klug studied cognitive science in Tübingen and was already in contact with EEG as a measurement method and brain-computer interface during that time. He subsequently earned his doctorate in the field of mobile brain research under Prof. Klaus Gramann at TU Berlin. There, he extensively dealt with EEG analysis methods and virtual reality as an experimental method. Specifically, the application of EEG in a mobile context, the cleaning of data, and their interpretation in conjunction with other measurements, such as body and eye movements, were the focus of the research. The continuation of this research can now be found at BTU in the form of the practical use of psychophysiological measurement methods as an interface for real-time applications.
Affiliation: BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg