Channel Selection from EEG Signals and Application
of Support Vector Machine on EEG Data
Mustafa Turan Arslan Server Göksel Eraldemir
Mustafa Kemal University øskenderun Technical University
Hatay, Turkey Hatay, Turkey
mtarslan@mku.edu.tr sgoksel.eraldemir@gmail.com
Abstract—In this study, EEG data recorded during mental
arithmetic operations and silent reading were analyzed by discrete
wavelet transform and feature vectors were obtained. The obtained
feature vectors are classified by Support Vector Machines (SVM).
Results are given for 26 channels, all recorded channels, and for 10
most effective channels. Correlation based feature selection based
algorithm is used for choosing the most effective channels.
Decreasing the number of channels without compromising the
accuracy, is an important issue for real time applications for which a
short analysis time is crucial. In this study, mental arithmetic and
silent reading tasks are classified with an accuracy of 90.71%, a
precision rate of 91.03% and F-measure rate of 90.63% on the
average using 26 channels, whereas the accuracy, precision and F-
measure were 90.44%, 90.61% and 90.08, respectively which were
comparable to that of obtained using all channels, for reduced
number of channels.
Index Terms— EEG, discrete wavelet transform (DWT),
classification, support vector machine (SVM).
I. INTRODUCTION
The brain, one of the most important organs in the body,
performs its function in the body by producing electrical
signals during each activity. Electrical signals produced by
brain can be measured by devices called EEG. The obtained
signals can be recorded in physical devices via special
software. EEG signals are evaluated in various aspects: the
time of occurrence, amplitude and frequency. EEG signals are
known to be high dimensional non-stationary signals [1].
Therefore classical signal processing techniques, such as
Fourier Transform which assumes stationarity within the
window, are inadequate for EEG signals processing and
multiresolution analysis techniques, such as Wavelet
Transform, have found many interesting applications in signal
processing[2]–[5]. There are diverse studies using Discrete
Wavelet Transform (DWT) and various classification
algorithms in EEG signal analysis [6], [7]. Ocak [8]
automatically identified the epileptic seizure by means of EEG
signals using DWT. Adeli et al. [9] analyzed the EEG data of
an epileptic patient using the DWT. Hazarika et al. [10]
classified three types of EEG data, which are normal control
subjects, patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (SCH) and
patients diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder
978-1-5386-1880-6/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Esen YÕldÕrÕm
Adana Science and Technology
University
Adana, Turkey
esenyildirim@gmail.com
(OCD), using DWT. Guler et al. [11] extracted features using
DWT from an EEG dataset, which consists of five sets; first
two sets are recorded from five healthy volunteers with eyes
open and closed, third and fourth sets are recorded in seizure
free intervals from epileptogenic zone and from the opposite
hemisphere of the brain and the last set contains seizure
activity. Total accuracy was reported as 98.68 by using
ANFIS for classification. Subasi et al. [12] applied PCA, ICA,
LDA feature selection methods to feature vectors obtained
from EEG signals and then performed classification analysis
by applying the SVM classification method to feature vectors
whose dimensions were reduced. In another study, Panda et al.
[13] performed a study to detect epilepsy from EEG signals
using DWT. In this study, EEG data recorded during cognitive
tasks were classified by means of Support Vector Machine
(SVM).
The classification of EEG signals recorded during
cognitive processing has been among the topics of interest in
recent years. Kottaimalai et al. [14] first applied Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) on EEG data obtained from the
University of Colorado database [12] to reduce the size of
feature vectors and then applied Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN) to classify EEG data with reduced dimensions. They
reported 100% accuracy. Amin et al. [15] used the DWT
method to extract features from EEG signals collected from 8
healthy male volunteers at Petronas Technology University.
Extracted feature vectors are classified by popular machine
learning algorithms, i.e. SVM, Multilayer Layer Perceptron
(MLP), k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) and Naive Bayes (NB)
methods. Extracted features were obtained using the total and
relative sub-band energies computed from A4 approximation
coefficient and D1-D4 detail coefficients. It is observed that
the obtained features are classified over accuracy of 98%
using DVM and MLP. Above 98 % accuracies with features
extracted using A4 and D4 sub-bands were reported as the
classification results of SVM and MLP.
In this study, EEG signals, recorded from 18 healthy
vocational school and engineering faculty students, while
performing mental mathematical operations and silent reading
are used for classification. Previous studies on this database
resulted in accuracies of 89.6%, 90.6%, 89.1% using Bayesian
Network, J48 Decision Tree, Bayesian Network, respectively
[16], [17]. In another study, addition-subtraction and
multiplication-division groups were distinguished by 79.3%
using k-NN algorithm [12]. This study, classifies these EEG
signals by means of SVM using the features extracted
employing bior2.4 wavelets.
II. MATERIAL AND METHODS
A. Collection of Data
EEG signals were obtained with 22 different electrodes
placed according to the international 10-20 system from 18
volunteers, 11 vocational school students and 7 students from
the engineering faculty, ages ranging from 18 to 25 with an
average age of 20.39.
Fig.1. Placement of electrodes on the head
EEG data were collected during a slide show, a total of 60
slides; 30 verbal texts and 30 mathematical operations of
13.25 seconds each slide, on a computer screen. Subjects were
asked to read texts without moving their lips and solve
mathematical operations mentally without using paper or pen.
Sample slides are given in Figure 2.
Fig.2.Sample slides a) Numerical slide example b) Verbal slide example
Students were informed about importance of focusing on
making the operations or reading the test instead of feeling an
obligation to get the correct answer or to rush to finish reading
the text.
The 50 Hz network noise was automatically filtered by the
EEG device when the data was collected from the students. A
low-pass filter with a cut-off frequency of 120 Hz was applied
to remove the data from the high frequency noises. In the
sorting of aggregated data, the first and last slides are not used
to save the troubles that may occur due to synchronization.
B. Feature Extraction
EEG signals are segmented using 75% overlapping sliding
rectangular windows of 1 second length. In the study, to
extract the feature vectors from the EEG signals, the bior2.4
main wavelet function of the DWT method was used. The
DWT method divides the EEG signal into approximation and
detail coefficients using low and high pass filters. This method
has variable wavelet lengths that are wide for low frequencies
and narrow for high frequencies instead of a constant
sinusoidal wave. The bior2.4 wavelet is known as
biorthogonal or double barbed wavelet. These wavelets
contain a pair of scaling functions and associated scaling
functions for analyzing and synthesizing the signals due to
their double spikes [18]. Feature matrix is obtained using
statistical properties [19]; averages of the absolute values of
the coefficients, maximum of the absolute values of the
coefficients, minimum of the absolute values of the
coefficients and standard deviation of the coefficients.
C. Channel Selection
Analysis time is of great importance in real time systems.
On systems with many channels, the number of attributes to
be extracted will be very high, so the processing time of a
window can be a problem. Thus, reducing the number of
channels without affecting the success rate will increase the
usability of the system. For this reason, it is important to find
the most effective channels in classification. In this study,
Correlation Based Feature Selection (CFS) method was used
to find the channels that provide the highest contribution to the
classification accuracy. For channel selection, the following
operations are performed in sequence;
1. Selected attributes were found with the help of CFS.
2. Channels of the selected features were determined.
3. Numbers of selected features for each channel were
found.
4. These steps were repeated for each subject to
determine the most commonly used channels for all
subjects.
All channels were analyzed from the channel with the
highest number of features to the channel with the lowest
number of features, taking into consideration the number of
selected features in all subjects. 10 channels with the highest
selected features are selected as the most effective channels.
D. Classification
1) Support Vector Machine
Support Vector Machines is one of the most basic and
common classification methods used for various tasks. This
method is proposed by Cortes and Vapnik [20] and is based on
the principle of structural risk minimization. This method is a
statistical and supervised learning algorithm. SVM uses core
functions to create a plane that will carry the data sets, that are Subject4 95.37 95.44 95.37
hard to separate linearly, into a high dimensional space and Subject5 95.26 95.26 95.26
maximizes the distance between classes [20]. The kernel Subject6 88.70 88.76 88.70
functions are obtained by internal multiplication of the support Subject7 97.33 97.35 97.33
vectors and the feature vectors. In this study, we use Radial Subject8 92.59 92.91 92.58
basis kernel functions, which are the most commonly used Subject9 91.59 91.59 91.59
core functions for SVM[13], [21] Subject10 93.07 93.08 93.07
Subject11 84.74 84.78 84.74
K ( x, x i ) = Φ ( x ).Φ ( x i ) (1) Subject12 87.56 87.69 87.54
Subject13 95.70 95.81 95.70
The non-linear decision function is used to find out which Subject14 97.33 97.34 97.33
class the sample belongs to. Subject15 95.30 95.36 95.29
Subject16 82.07 82.07 82.07
f ( x) = ¦ i =1α i y K ( x, x i ) + d
N
(2) Subject17 94.33 94.70 94.32
i
Subject18 95.81 95.88 95.81
Here are the Lagrange multipliers, are the desired Average 90.71 91.03 90.63

outputs and are the support vectors where

obtained from training samples. The classification results of 26-channel EEG data are
given in Table II. The highest accuracy was obtained with
III. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 97.33% for the subject 7 and subject 14. The lowest accuracy
was 67.30% for subject 3. The average classification
EEG signals from 18 subjects were collected and then
performance of EEG data with 26 channels was 90.71%. In
feature vectors were extracted from 26 channels using bior2.4
analysis of 26-channel EEG data, precision and F-measure
wavelet function which is one of the main functions of the
were 91.03% and 90.63%, respectively on the average. In a
DWT method.
previous study, Eraldemir et al [16] obtained 26 channel
Processing time is very important in real time applications.
feature vectors using bior2.4 wavelet from EEG signals on the
For this reason, the analysis process to be performed must be
same dataset. The obtained features vectors were classified by
as fast as possible. Thus, reducing the number of features is of
Bayesian Network and J48 Decision Tree. Bayesian Network
importance. Therefore, reducing the number of channels used
classified with accuracy of 89.6% whereas J48 Decision Tree
in feature extraction would help rapid processing. In this
classified with accuracy of 90.6%.
study, 10 most effective channels, that make the best
contribution to the classification accuracy, are determined. TABLE III. ANALYSIS RESULTS OF 10-CHANNEL EEG DATA WITH SVM
Table I shows the names of the 10 most effective channels
we used in our study and the total number of selected features Subject Accuracy Precision F-Measure
using CFS for those channels. The obtained set of feature Subject1 92.96 93.09 93.65
vectors is normalized to the value range [-1, 1]. Then SVM, Subject2 84.81 86.13 82.57
which is a statistical and supervised algorithm, is applied to the Subject3 69.11 69.73 66.87
normalized data set. In order to test the performance of this Subject4 95.56 95.57 95.32
method, a 10-fold cross-validation technique was used. Subject5 95.30 95.30 95.25
Subject6 87.44 87.45 87.55
TABLE I. CHANNEL NAMES AND FEATURE NUMBERS Subject7 96.22 96.32 95.67
Channel Name Number of Features Subject8 93.22 93.25 93.53
Fp1-Fp2 113 Subject9 89.96 89.97 89.86
O1-O2 69 Subject10 92.33 92.34 92.16
T5-T6 52
Subject11 86.59 86.67 87.16
T3-A1 51
T6-A2 49 Subject12 85.30 85.62 84.14
Fp1-A1 43 Subject13 95.30 95.33 95.66
T4-A2 42 Subject14 96.56 96.56 96.49
Fp1-O1 42 Subject15 94.96 95.01 94.58
F8-A2 40 Subject16 82.15 82.15 82.04
F7-F8 39 Subject17 94.81 95.04 93.96
Subject18 95.37 95.44 94.91
TABLE II. ANALYSIS RESULTS OF 26-CHANNEL EEG DATA WITH SVM Average 90.44 90.61 90.08
Subject Accuracy Precision F-Measure
Subject1 93.33 93.47 93.33 The classification results with reduced channels are shown
Subject2 85.33 86.76 85.19 in Table III. SVM yielded the highest performance for subject
Subject3 67.30 70.19 66.08 14 with the accuracy of 96.56% and the lowest performance
for subject 3 with the accuracy of 69.11%. The average
classification performance of EEG data with 10 channels of 18
students was 90.44%. On reduced data, precision and F-
measure were 90.61% and 90.08%, respectively on the
average. On the same dataset, Eraldemir et al. [22] made
channel selection from EEG signals using db4 wavelet. 26-
channel EEG data were classified with accuracy of 88.8% by
Bayesian Networks, whereas the accuracy for only 10 most
effective channels was 90%. Results show that, SVM
classification has the highest accuracy for this dataset.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this study, EEG signals from 18 volunteers, studying in
vocational school and engineering faculty, were recorded.
From this bioelectrical measurements, 26 channel feature
vectors were obtained by means of bior2.4 wavelet. By
analyzing 26-channel feature vectors, the most effective 10
channels were determined. The average accuracy with 26
channels was found to be 90.71%, whereas a better average
accuracy of 90.44% was obtained for the most effective 10
channels. Results show that, SVM has a better classification
accuracy than other algorithms with feature vectors obtained
from EEG signals using bior2.4 wavelet.
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