Identifying gifted thinking activities through EEG microstate topology analysis

Abstract

EEG microstate of the brain has been suggested to reflect functional significance of cognitive activity. In this paper, from math-gifted and non-gifted adolescents’ EEG during a reasoning task, four classes of microstate configuration were extracted based on clustering analysis approach. Computations of multiple parameters were down for each class of EEG microstate. Between-groups statistical and discriminating analyses for these parameters discovered significant functional differences between math-gifted and non-gifted subjects in momentary microstates, involving mean duration and occurrence of EEG electric field configuration. Additionally, the topological differences between the two groups vary across classes and reflect functional disassociation of cognitive processing of the reasoning task. Our study suggests that the microstate classes can be used as the effective EEG features for identifying mental operations by individuals with typical cognitive ability differences.