EEG-Based Perceived Tactile Location Prediction

Abstract

Previous studies have attempted to investigate the peripheral neural mechanisms implicated in tactile perception, but the neurophysiological data in humans involved in tactile spatial location perception to help the brain orient the body and interact with its surroundings are not well understood. In this paper, we use single-trial electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements to explore the perception of tactile stimuli located on participants’ right forearm, which were approximately equally spaced centered on the body midline, 2 leftward and 2 rightward of midline. An EEG-based signal analysis approach to predict the location of the tactile stimuli is proposed. Offline classification suggests that tactile location can be detected from EEG signals in single trial (four-class classifier for location discriminate can achieve up to 96.76%) with a short response time (600 milliseconds after stimulus presentation). From a human-machine-interaction (HMI) point of view, this could be used to design a real-time reactive control machine for patients, e.g., suffering from hypoesthesia.