Personality and the Alpha Rhythm

Abstract

Since human electroencephalography was first introduced by Berger in 1929, there have been many attempts to correlate the alpha rhythm with various aspects of personality. Lemere (1936) first reported a relationship between “good” and “poor” alpha rhythms and cyclothymic and schizoid personalities respectively. Gottlober (1938) found a correlation between a high alpha index (per cent. time alpha) and extraversion. However, Henry and Knott (1941) pointed out that the group studied by Gottlober was loaded both with high alpha indices and extraverts, and with additional data were unable to find a significant relationship between extraversion-introversion and alpha index.