Abstract:The basic emotion theory proposes that human emotions are composed of a limited number of primary emotions, such as happy, anger, fear, and sad. Using brain functional imaging to explore the unique neural structure of basic emotions, but the results are too complex to support the basic emotions theory, they cannot support basic emotion theory. One reason may be that emotions are transient and mutable. And EEG, with its high temporal resolution, maybe can helps to solve this problem. This article discusses the basic emotion elicitation techniques and the application value of EEG, summarizes several ERP components related to basic emotion and their characteristics. Finally, the research idea of combining EEG with artificial intelligence to provide new research ideas for basic emotion theory is proposed.