Temporal stability of multichannel, multimodal ERP recordings.

Personnel assessment applications of event related brain potentials (ERP) require temporal stability. Visual, auditory and bimodal ERP records were obtained about two hours apart for a group of young adult males. Similar records were obtained from a group of older adults about two months apart. No ERP amplitude or temporal stability differences were found between the two groups. Age was positively correlated with visual stability measures and negatively correlated with auditory stability measures. No correlation of age with bimodal stability measures was found. Large individual subject differences were found for the ERP analog waveform and temporal stability. The ERPs were highly stable within subjects from session to session, whether recorded hours or months apart. Greatest stability was obtained for bimodal presentation, less for visual and least for the auditory records. Differences in patterns of waveform stability were found for site and modality conditions across individuals.