Identifying Suitable Brain Regions and Trial Size Segmentation for Positive/Negative Emotion Recognition

The development of suitable EEG-based emotion recognition systems has become a main target in the last decades for Brain Computer Interface applications (BCI). However, there are scarce algorithms and procedures for real-time classification of emotions. The present study aims to investigate the feasibility of real-time emotion recognition implementation by the selection of parameters such as the appropriate time window segmentation and target bandwidths and cortical regions. We recorded the EEG-neural activity of 24 participants while they were looking and listening to an audiovisual database composed of positive and negative emotional video clips. We tested 12 different temporal window sizes, 6 ranges of frequency bands and 60 electrodes located along the entire scalp. Our results showed a correct classification of 86.96% for positive stimuli. The correct classification for negative stimuli was a little bit less (80.88%). The best time window size, from the tested 1 s to 12 s segments, was 12 s. Although more studies are still needed, these preliminary results provide a reliable way to develop accurate EEG-based emotion classification.