Error bar for EEG data- standard deviation or standard error mean

Greetings!

I need to plot power spectrum of EEG data along with an error bar. I was wondering if I need to use the standard deviation or the standard error mean to plot the error bar.

In other words which one would be the right option,

a) errorbar(frequency, meanpower, standard_deviation)

OR

b) errorbar(frequency, meanpower, standard_error_mean)

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

If you are plotting the means, and you want to express the possible range each mean value could take at each point, then the standard error of the mean would likely be most appropriate.

If you are instead interested in the variation of the data at each point, then use the standard deviation.

In either situation, the 95% confidence intervals derived from either then standard error or the standard deviation would be most meaningful. The inverse t-value would be the correct way to calculate them.

It all depends on what you want to present in the plot.

[Star Strider]

Sparsha Kumari’s Answer moved here —

Thanks! It has helped me out.

[Star Strider]

My pleasure!