Development of Novel EEG System for Emotion Recognition

Abstract

The brain activities of human are generated by neurons as they send electronic pulses to each other. These pulses can propagate to the surface of human bodies, then they can be picked up by sensors as electronic signals and this method is called electroencephalography (EEG). With proper means of signal processing, certain information can be extracted from the EEG signals such as emotions. Currently, most of the products for collecting EEG signals are utilizing electrodes put on the scalp with the aid of conductive paste, and lots of them are made using Ag/AgCl. However, those devices are bulky in nature and generally not acceptable for daily use due to the difficulty of setting up the devices. Thus, this project aims to seek an alternative way to collect EEG data and make a portable device. There is a relatively new concept called in-ear EEG, which is to collect EEG data from electrodes put in ear canals. In this project, the in-ear EEG signal is acquired by a multi-channel EEG device and the signals are verified using eye-open eye-closing (alpha activity) test and ASSR test. A prototype circuit dedicated for in-ear EEG signal collection is also being developed and tested. The in-ear channel tested in this experiment was in right ear canal, facing backward, it showed high correlation with on-scalp channel T6, O1, CP6, P3 and P4 which gives possibility for emotion interpretation. Further tests on different in-ear channels will be conducted in the future.