Event‐related EEG time‐frequency PCA and the orienting reflex to auditory stimuli

We recently reported an auditory habituation series with counterbalanced indifferent and significant (counting) instructions. Time‐frequency (t‐f) analysis of electrooculogram‐corrected EEG was used to explore event‐related synchronization (ERS)/desynchronization (ERD) in four EEG bands using arbitrarily selected time epochs and traditional frequency ranges. ERS in delta, theta, and alpha, and subsequent ERD in theta, alpha, and beta, showed substantial decrement over trials, yet effects of stimulus significance (count vs. no‐task) were minimal. Here, we used principal components analysis (PCA) of the t‐f data to investigate the natural frequency and time combinations involved in such stimulus processing. We identified four ERS and four ERD t‐f components: six showed decrement over trials, four showed count > no‐task effects, and six showed Significance × Trial interactions. This increased sensitivity argues for the wider use of our data‐driven t‐f PCA approach.