title: Using ERPs for assessing the (sub) conscious perception of noise.
abstract: In this paper, we investigate the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) as a quantitative measure for quality assessment of disturbed audio signals. For this purpose, we ran an EEG study (N=11) using an oddball paradigm, during which subjects were presented with the phoneme /a/, superimposed with varying degrees of signal-correlated noise. Based on this data set, we address the question to which degree the degradation of the auditory stimuli is reflected on a neural level, even if the disturbance is below the threshold of conscious perception. For those stimuli that are consciously recognized as being disturbed, we suggest the use of the amplitude and latency of the P300 component for assessing the level of disturbance. For disturbed stimuli for which the noise is not perceived consciously, we show for two subjects that a classifier based on shrinkage LDA can be applied successfully to single out stimuli, for which the noise was presumably processed subconsciously.
authors.affiliation: Machine Learning Laboratory, Berlin Institute of Technology, 10587 Berlin, Germany. anne.k.porbadnigk@tu-berlin.de
authors.forename: Anne K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Porbadnigk
authors.forename: Jan-N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Antons
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blankertz
authors.forename: Matthias S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Treder
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schleicher
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moller
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Curio
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006801:Humans; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology; D009622:Noise; D012372:ROC Curve; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014584:User-Computer Interface