How to successfully classify EEG in motor imagery BCI: a metrological analysis of the state of the art

Objective. Processing strategies are analysed with respect to the classification of electroencephalographic signals related to brain-computer interfaces based on motor imagery. A review of literature is carried out to understand the achievements in motor imagery classification, the most promising trends, and the challenges in replicating these results. Main focus is placed on performance by means of a rigorous metrological analysis carried out in compliance with the international vocabulary of metrology. Hence, classification accuracy and its uncertainty are considered, as well as repeatability and reproducibility.Approach. The paper works included in the review concern the classification of electroencephalographic signals in motor-imagery- based brain-computer interfaces. Article search was carried out in accordance with the PRISMA standard and 89 studies were included.Main results. Statistically-based analyses show that brain-inspired approaches are increasingly proposed, and that these are particularly successful in discriminating against multiple classes. Notably, many proposals involve convolutional neural networks. Instead, classical machine learning approaches are still effective for binary classifications. Many proposals combine common spatial pattern, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, and support vector machines. Regarding reported classification accuracies, performance above the upper quartile is in the 85 % to 100 % range for the binary case and in the 83 % to 93 % range for multi-class one. Associated uncertainties are up to 6 % while repeatability for a predetermined dataset is up to 8 %. Reproducibility assessment was instead prevented by lack of standardization in experiments.Significance. By relying on the analysed studies, the reader is guided towards the development of a successful processing strategy as a crucial part of a brain-computer interface. Moreover, it is suggested that future studies should extend these approaches on data from more subjects and with custom experiments, even by investigating online operation. This would also enable the quantification of results reproducibility.

The extension of the largest generalized-eigenvalue based distance metric D_ij (γ_1 ) in arbitrary feature spaces to classify composite data points

Analyzing patterns in data points embedded in linear and non-linear feature spaces is considered as one of the common research problems among different research areas, for example: data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, and multivariate analysis. In this paper, data points are heterogeneous sets of biosequences (composite data points). A composite data point is a set of ordinary data points (e.g., set of feature vectors). We theoretically extend the derivation of the largest generalized eigenvalue-based distance metric D_ij (γ_1 ) in any linear and non-linear feature spaces. We prove that D_ij (γ_1 ) is a metric under any linear and non-linear feature transformation function. We show the sufficiency and efficiency of using the decision rule δ ̅_(Ξ_i ) (i.e., mean of D_ij (γ_1 )) in classification of heterogeneous sets of biosequences compared with the decision rules min_(Ξ_i )and median_(Ξ_i ). We analyze the impact of linear and non-linear transformation functions on classifying/clustering collections of heterogeneous sets of biosequences. The impact of the length of a sequence in a heterogeneous sequence-set generated by simulation on the classification and clustering results in linear and non-linear feature spaces is empirically shown in this paper. We propose a new concept: the limiting dispersion map of the existing clusters in heterogeneous sets of biosequences embedded in linear and nonlinear feature spaces, which is based on the limiting distribution of nucleotide compositions estimated from real data sets. Finally, the empirical conclusions and the scientific evidences are deduced from the experiments to support the theoretical side stated in this paper.