A bootstrap method to compare the shapes of two scalp fields.

A method is described to compare two evoked potential scalp fields in order to decide if the two fields are the same or different. The method uses Efron's bootstrap technique which avoids potential errors due to assumptions about the underlying stochastic process. It is configured to focus only on the shape of the evoked potential scalp field. The method is applied to a simple visually evoked potential paradigm and results are compared to the chi-square test using data from 7 normal subjects.