Abstract: In involuntary movement, Lateralized readiness potential (LRP) refers to negative lateralized readiness potential which occurs to the cerebral cortex contralateral to the response effector. The crux of LRP analysis is to find the appropriate “onset” time. LRP can reveal the different cognitive processing temporal features in the stimulus- response link. Two methods were discussed to validate LRP: the concreteness of the preparedness of response and the movement controlling origins. The broad applications of LRP were illustrated by examples from subliminal perception, movement preparation and Simon Effect in cognitive studies and the on-going study of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). However, there are some limitations in the applications of LRP, such as interferences from other EEG components, the low signal-to-noise ratio in measurement and the requirement of single lateral response effector, etc

Key words: LRP, subliminal perception, movement preparation, Simon Effect, BCI