“Oddball” Electroencephalogram/Evoked Potential Paradigm for Identifying a Person’s Psycho-Emotional State

Assessment of evoked potentials using electroencephalography is a classic method for determining a person's response to different types of stimuli. The literature describes EPs that are specific markers of emotional perception. To date, many stimulus bases have been developed and validated for use in EEG EP paradigms, among which images of human faces with emotional expression stand out. It is possible that the perception of this type of stimulus may have its own specificity — for example, it may occur faster than the perception of other classes of images, since it represents a more significant biological signal. In this review, we wanted to show the features of using affective images in the oddball paradigm, focusing on the use of human faces with emotional expression. This paradigm also belongs to the EEG/EP paradigms, but it has several features. The advantages of this technique are, firstly, its higher sensitivity compared to other paradigms with the presentation of emotional images. Secondly, it is possible, during the passive presentation of visual stimuli, to analyze the rapid automatic reactions that, according to previous studies, accompany the perception of faces. Perhaps the most effective images in the oddball EEG/EP paradigm will be facial expressions. The obtained data by using this paradigm are presented. The data obtained data show differences in both the amplitude and spatial components of the EP associated with different facial expressions — happy/angry.

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