EEG channel selection strategy for deep learning in emotion recognition

Abstract

Emotions play an important role in everyday life and contribute to physical and mental health. Emotional states can be detected by electroencephalography (EEG signals). Efficient information retrieval from the EEG sensors is a complex and challenging task. Therefore, deep learning methods for EEG signal analysis attract more and more attention. Many researchers emphasize automated feature learning as the motivation for using deep learning approaches. We propose using a limited number of EEG channels as an input for a deep neural network. In the research, we confirm that our electrode selection enhances the learning process of the convolutional neural network. The classification accuracy for the reduced subset of electrodes yields results comparable to the full dataset in a significantly shorter time—the average learning time 58% faster using our proposed strategy.