Use of Kohonen Maps as feature selector for selective attention brain-computer interfaces

Abstract

Selective attention to visual-spatial stimuli causes decrements of power in alpha band and increments in beta. For steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) selective attention affects electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, modulating the power in the range 8-27 Hz. The same behaviour can be seen for auditory stimuli as well, although for auditory steady-state response (ASSR), it is not fully confirmed yet. The design of selective attention based braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) has two major advantages: First, no much training is needed. Second, if properly designed, a steady-state response corresponding to spectral peaks can be elicited, easy to filter and classify. In this paper we study the behaviour of Kohonen Maps as feature selector for a selective attention to auditory stimuli based BCI system. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.