Single-trial lambda wave identification using a fuzzy inference system and predictive statistical diagnosis

The aim of the study was to automate the identification of a saccade-related visual evoked potential (EP) called the lambda wave. The lambda waves were extracted from single trials of electroencephalogram (EEG) waveforms using independent component analysis (ICA). A trial was a set of EEG waveforms recorded from 64 scalp electrode locations while a saccade was performed. Forty saccade-related EEG trials (recorded from four normal subjects) were used in the study. The number of waveforms per trial was reduced from 64 to 22 by pre-processing. The application of ICA to the resulting waveforms produced 880 components (i.e. 4 subjects x 10 trials per subject x 22 components per trial). The components were divided into 373 lambda and 507 nonlambda waves by visual inspection and then they were represented by one spatial and two temporal features. The classification performance of a Bayesian approach called predictive statistical diagnosis (PSD) was compared with that of a fuzzy logic approach called a fuzzy inference system (FIS). The outputs from the two classification approaches were then combined and the resulting discrimination accuracy was evaluated. For each approach, half the data from the lambda and nonlambda wave categories were used to determine the operating parameters of the classification schemes while the rest (i.e. the validation set) were used to evaluate their classification accuracies. The sensitivity and specificity values when the classification approaches were applied to the lambda wave validation data set were as follows: for the PSD 92.51% and 91.73% respectively, for the FIS 95.72% and 89.76% respectively, and for the combined FIS and PSD approach 97.33% and 97.24% respectively (classification threshold was 0.5). The devised signal processing techniques together with the classification approaches provided for an effective extraction and classification of the single-trial lambda waves. However, as only four subjects were included, it will be valuable to further evaluate the methods on a larger group of subjects.