streesful situation
Research Papers
Ecological validity of neurofeedback: modulation of slow wave EEG enhances musical performance
Biofeedback-assisted modulation of electrocortical activity has been established to have intrinsic clinical benefits and has been shown to improve cognitive performance in healthy humans. In order to further investigate the pedagogic relevance of electroencephalograph (EEG) biofeedback (neurofeedback) for enhancing normal function, a series of investigations assessed the training's impact on an ecologically valid real-life behavioural performance measure: music performance under stressful conditions in conservatoire students. In a pilot study, single-blind expert ratings documented improvements in musical performance in a student group that received training on attention and relaxation related neurofeedback protocols, and improvements were highly correlated with learning to progressively raise theta (5-8 Hz) over alpha (8-11 Hz) band amplitudes. These findings were replicated in a second experiment where an alpha/theta training group displayed significant performance enhancement not found with other neurofeedback training protocols or in alternative interventions, including the widely applied Alexander technique.
View Full Paper →Effects of instructions and biofeedback on EEG-alpha production and the effects of EEG-alpha biofeedback training for controlling arousal in a subsequent stressful situation
In Phase One, 44 subjects participated in a 2 (instructions to increase alpha, no instructions to increase alpha) × 2 (alpha biofeedback, no alpha biofeedback) factorial experiment. Results indicated that increases in alpha production were due to instructions to increase alpha and that biofeedback had no effect on alpha production. In Phase Two, the 44 subjects from Phase One were exposed to a threat of shock whereas 11 additional subjects in a control condition were not. The design employed in Phase Two was a 2 (previous instructions and stress, no previous instructions and stress) × 2 (previous biofeedback and stress, no previous biofeedback and stress) plus 1 (no previous instructions/no previous biofeedback, no stress). Results indicated that the threat of shock was effective in increasing arousal (as measured by heart rate and skin resistance) but previous EEG-alpha biofeedback training was not effective in helping subjects decrease arousal while in the stressful situation. The results indicate that it is the instructions (and related information concerning alpha) rather than the biofeedback that is critical in alpha biofeedback training and that this training does not appear to have utility for controlling arousal under stress.
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