of occurrence of an ERP phenomenon in milliseconds) reflects neural processing time, whereas the amplitude (magnitude of an ERP component in microvolts) has been related to the neural resources available to process a stimulus or event (Rugg and Coles 1996). Frequently studied ERP components include P1, N1, P2, N2, P3 (P300), N4 (N400), mismatch negativity (MMN), contingent negative variation (CNV), and bereitschaftspotential (BP) or readiness potential. These components are obtained using specific ERP tasks, such as oddball tasks, Go/No-Go tasks,2 continuous performance task (CPT),3 stop-signal tasks,4 monetary gambling tasks (MGT), decision-making tasks, memory tasks, and tapping (motor) tasks. The following section reviews salient ERP findings reflecting neurocognitive (dys) function in alcoholics and HR offspring of alcoholics and discusses the application of source localization methods (e.g., dipole modeling, current source density [CSD], low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography [LORETA]) and componential methods (e.g., principal component analysis [PCA], independent component analysis [ICA], trilinear modeling).
