[Research strategies in cognitive psychophysiology].

Abstract

Two research strategies of cognitive psychophysiology are explained and illustrated by means of examples. In psychophysiological chronometry latencies of distinct events are measured from various biosignals (electroencephalogram, electromyogram, overt responses). These data provide insight into when a hypothetical processing module is activated, how long it is active and how long it takes to transfer information from one module to another. Among others, this approach allows to investigate whether particular processing steps are running in a sequential or a parallel mode. In a second approach event-related brain potentials which accompany well defined steps of information processing are analysed. Their topography provides information about which cortical areas are involved during particular steps of information processing and their amplitude indicates the load which is imposed on these areas. Both research strategies make it possible to study features of the human information processing system before an overt response has been committed. Implications which follow from these methodological approaches for fields of basic and applied research are mentioned (e.g. for cognitive, pharmaco- and neuropsychology).