A spatial approach of magnitude-squared coherence applied to selective attention detection

作者：Felix Leonardo Bonato; Ranaudo Fernando de Souza; Netto Aluizio D'Affonseca; Ferreira Leite Miranda de Sa Antonio Mauricio

来源：Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2014, 229: 28-32.

DOI：10.1016/j.jneumeth.2014.03.014

• Selective attention
• Spatial Coherence
• Auditory steady-state response

Background: Auditory selective attention is the human ability of actively focusing in a certain sound stimulus while avoiding all other ones. This ability can be used, for example, in behavioral studies and brain-machine interface.
New method: In this work we developed an objective method - called Spatial Coherence - to detect the side where a subject is focusing attention to. This method takes into consideration the Magnitude Squared Coherence and the topographic distribution of responses among electroencephalogram electrodes. The individuals were stimulated with amplitude-modulated tones binaurally and were oriented to focus attention to only one of the stimuli.
Results: The results indicate a contralateral modulation of ASSR in the attention condition and are in agreement with prior studies. Furthermore, the best combination of electrodes led to a hit rate of 82% for 5.03. commands per minute.
Comparison with existing method(s): Using a similar paradigm, in a recent work, a maximum hit rate of 84.33% was achieved, but with a greater a classification time (20 s, i.e. 3 commands per minute).
Conclusions: It seems that Spatial Coherence is a useful technique for detecting focus of auditory selective attention.

• 出版日期2014-5-30