Event-related potentials (ERPs) are electrical potentials generated by the brain that are related to specific internal or external events (eg, stimuli, responses, decisions). They can be recorded noninvasively from almost any group of research participants, and they can provide information about a broad range of cognitive and affective processes. Consequently, the ERP technique has become a common tool in almost all areas of psychological research, and students and researchers must be able to understand and evaluate ERP studies in the literature. These studies often involve a set of terms and concepts that are unfamiliar to many psychologists, however; several technical issues must be understood before a student or researcher can read and evaluate ERP studies. This chapter provides students and researchers with this background information so that they can be informed consumers of ERP studies in their area of interest. This chapter begins with an example of a particular ERP component—the N170 wave—and describes how it has been used to address issues ranging from perception and attention to development and neurodevelopmental disorders. This discussion will be followed by an overview of the major ERP components, which will provide both a vocabulary and a sense of the topics that are commonly explored with ERPs. The next sections describe how ERPs are generated in the brain and how the neural generator site of a given ERP can be localized. This information is followed by a discussion of the basic technical issues involved in recording and analyzing ERPs, using a study of impaired cognition in schizophrenia patients as a concrete example. The chapter ends with a set of questions that should be asked when reading and evaluating an ERP study.(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)