Limiting data loss in infant EEG: putting hunches to the test

Bauke van der Velde*, Caroline Junge

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

EEG is a widely used tool to study the infant brain and its relationship with behavior. As infants usually have small attention spans, move at free will, and do not respond to task instructions, attrition rates are usually high. Increasing our understanding of what influences data loss is therefore vital. The current paper examines external factors to data loss in a large-scale on-going longitudinal study (the YOUth project; 1279 five-month-olds, 1024 ten-months-olds, and 109 three-year-olds). Data loss is measured for both continuous EEG and ERP tasks as the percentage data loss after artifact removal. Our results point to a wide array of external factors that contribute to data loss, some related to the child (e.g., gender; age; head shape) and some related to experimental settings (e.g., choice of research assistant; time of day; season; and course of the experiment). Data loss was also more pronounced in the ERP experiment than in the EEG experiment. Finally, evidence was found for within-subject stability in data loss characteristics over multiple sessions. We end with recommendations to limit data loss in future studies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number100809
Number of pages13
JournalDevelopmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume45
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Author BV was supported by the Consortium on Individual Development (CID). CID is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the NWO (Grant No. 024.001.003 ). The authors thank Ron Scholten for help with data management; Lilli van Wielink and Jolien ten Boer for helpful insights and discussion into hunches regarding data loss; and Chantal Kemner for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Finally, the authors thank the many parents, caregivers, and children that have volunteered for the YOUth study and the entire staff at the KinderKennisCentrum for making the measurements possible.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors

Funding

Author BV was supported by the Consortium on Individual Development (CID). CID is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the NWO (Grant No. 024.001.003 ). The authors thank Ron Scholten for help with data management; Lilli van Wielink and Jolien ten Boer for helpful insights and discussion into hunches regarding data loss; and Chantal Kemner for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Finally, the authors thank the many parents, caregivers, and children that have volunteered for the YOUth study and the entire staff at the KinderKennisCentrum for making the measurements possible.

Keywords

  • Data analysis
  • Data loss
  • EEG
  • Infants
  • Longitudinal

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