This document introduces the NP-EEG Toolbox, an open-source MATLAB toolbox for analyzing EEG data collected using naturalistic paradigms. The toolbox was developed by researchers at the Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica to streamline their analysis of EEG signals recorded during real-world activities. The toolbox architecture includes modules for EEG preprocessing, connectivity analysis, statistics, and visualization. Future work will involve improving documentation, including sample datasets, developing a graphical user interface, and refactoring code. The goal is to provide a useful tool that saves researchers time and effort in analyzing naturalistic EEG data.

1. NP-EEG Toolbox:
An Open-Source Toolbox
for Naturalistic Paradigm EEG
Analysis
Juin-Der Lee, Michelle Liou, Vincent S. C. Chien,
Jiun-Wei Liou
Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica,
Taipei, Taiwan
Data Science, Statistics & Visualisation 2022
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC.

2. Agenda
• EEG
• Naturalistic paradigm
• Why release NP-EEG Toolbox
• Architecture
• Flowchart
• Future work

3. Spatio-temporal EEG signal for studying
human brain functions
https://i1.wp.com/pic4.zhimg.com/v2-d69f44ef5f25419ed2342d6a15d2f1e5_r.jpg

4. Traditional EEG experiment design
Mohsenzadeh, Yalda & Qin, Sheng & Cichy, Radoslaw & Pantazis, Dimitrios. (2018). Ultra-Rapid serial
visual presentation reveals dynamics of feedforward and feedback processes in the ventral visual
pathway. eLife. 7. 10.7554/eLife.36329.
• Repeat simple tasks a lot of
times
• It is “Unnatural”: humans
seldom behaves this way in real
life.

5. Naturalistic paradigm
https://sharpbrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/musicEEG.jpg
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6. Record EEG signal during shopping
Banerjee, Tannista. (2020). A neurobehavioral study on the efficacy of price interventions
in promoting healthy food choices among low socioeconomic families. Nature. 10.
10.1038/s41598-020-71082-y.

7. • Differences in Physiological Signals Due to Age and Exercise Habits of Subjects during Cycling Exercise, SY Lin, et al.,
Sensors 21 (21), 7220, 2021
• Brain dynamics and connectivity networks under natural auditory stimulation, PC Kuo, et al., Neuroimage 202,
116042, 2019
• Lingering sound: event-related phase-amplitude coupling and phase-locking in fronto-temporo-parietal functional
networks during memory retrieval of music melodies, YL Tseng, et al., Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 13, 150,
2019
Brain Dynamics & Information Synthesis Lab
at Institute of Statistical Science,
Academia Sinica
• Have being working on real-life EEG signal
processing for the past few years.
• Have developed an SOP of analyzing data.
• Have accumulated lots of in-house codes.

8. Motivations for releasing NP-EEG Toolbox
Save researcher’s time and effort
As a reference design
Foster collaborations

9. Architecture
EEG Lab
Preprocessing Connectivity Statistics Visualization
NP-EEG
Toolbox
MATLAB
Image processing toolbox
Signal processing toolbox
Statistics toolbox
Optimization toolbox

10. Preprocessing
Brain Connectivity
Analysis Statistics
Visualization
channels_()
• add_dummy_events
• re-reference
• bandpass filtering
• extract epochs
• reject bad channels with
too many bad trials
epochs_()
• reject bad epochs
ica_()
• Mark ICA components
having large R2 with
regression channels
clean_()
• Clean ICA components
whose R2 is too large by
regression out artifacts.
computePAC()
• Compute phase
amplitude coupling value
computePLV()
• Compute phase locking
value
plv_ttest()
• Statistical t-test for PLV
pac_ttest()
• Statistical t-test for PAC
plotPLV(), plotPAC()
• Visualize PLV and PAC results

11. Future work
Current
• Alpha version
• Command line only
• Some messy codes
• Not well documented
Next
• Documentation
• Sample dataset
• Graphical User Interface
• Refactoring
Will be available soon on GitHub.

12. Thank you for your time!