title: Relevant EEG features for the classification of spontaneous motor-related tasks.
abstract: There is a growing interest in the use of physiological signals for communication and operation of devices for the severely motor disabled as well as for healthy people. A few groups around the world have developed brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that rely upon the recognition of motor-related tasks (i.e., imagination of movements) from on-line EEG signals. In this paper we seek to find and analyze the set of relevant EEG features that best differentiate spontaneous motor-related mental tasks from each other. This study empirically demonstrates the benefits of heuristic feature selection methods for EEG-based classification of mental tasks. In particular, it is shown that the classifier performance improves for all the considered subjects with only a small proportion of features. Thus, the use of just those relevant features increases the efficiency of the brain interfaces and, most importantly, enables a greater level of adaptation of the personal BCI to the individual user.
authors.affiliation: ISIS, Joint Research Centre of the EC, Ispra, Italy. jose.millan@jrc.it
authors.forename: JosédelR
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Millán
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Franzé
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mouriño
authors.forename: Febo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cincotti
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Babiloni
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D003143:Communication Devices for People with Disabilities; D003200:Computer User Training; D003491:Cybernetics; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*