Improving the Feature Stability and Classification Performance of Bimodal Brain and Heart Biometrics

Electrical activities from brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) and heart (electrocardiogram, ECG) have been proposed as biometric modalities but the combined use of these signals appear not to have been studied thoroughly. Also, the feature stability of these signals has been a limiting factor for biometric usage. This paper presents results from a pilot study that reveal the combined use of brain and heart modalities provide improved classification performance and further-more, an improvement in the stability of the features over time through the use of binaural brain entrainment. The classification rate was increased, for the case of the neural network classifier from 92.4% to 95.1% and for the case of LDA, from 98.6% to 99.8%. The average standard deviation with binaural brain entrainment using all the inter-session features (from all the subjects) was 1.09, as compared to 1.26 without entrainment. This result suggests the improved stability of both the EEG and ECG features over time and hence resulting in higher classification performance. Overall, the results indicate that combining ECG and EEG gives improved classification performance and that through the use of binaural brain entrainment, both the ECG and EEG features are more stable over time

A High-Density EEG Investigation into Steady State Binaural Beat Stimulation

Binaural beats are an auditory phenomenon that has been suggested to alter physiological and cognitive processes including vigilance and brainwave entrainment. Some personality traits measured by the NEO Five Factor Model have been found to alter entrainment using pulsing light stimuli, but as yet no studies have examined if this occurs using steady state presentation of binaural beats for a relatively short presentation of two minutes. This study aimed to examine if binaural beat stimulation altered vigilance or cortical frequencies and if personality traits were involved. Thirty-one participants were played binaural beat stimuli designed to elicit a response at either the Theta (7 Hz) or Beta (16 Hz) frequency bands while undertaking a zero-back vigilance task. EEG was recorded from a high-density electrode cap. No significant differences were found in vigilance or cortical frequency power during binaural beat stimulation compared to a white noise control period. Furthermore, no significant relationships were detected between the above and the Big Five personality traits. This suggests a short presentation of steady state binaural beats are not sufficient to alter vigilance or entrain cortical frequencies at the two bands examined and that certain personality traits were not more susceptible than others

The vestibular system modulates the contributions of head and torso to egocentric spatial judgements

Egocentric representations allow us to describe the external world as experienced from an individual’s bodily location. We recently developed a novel method of quantifying the weight given to different body parts in egocentric judgments (the Misalignment Paradigm). We found that both head and torso contribute to simple alter-egocentric spatial judgments. We hypothesised that artificial stimulation of the vestibular system would provide a head-related signal, which might affect the weighting given to the head in egocentric spatial judgments. Bipolar Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) was applied during the Misalignment Paradigm. A sham stimulation condition was also included to control for non-specific effects. Our data show that the weight given to the head was increased during left anodal and right cathodal GVS, compared to the opposite GVS polarity and sham stimulation. That is, the polarity of GVS, which preferentially activates vestibular areas in the right cerebral hemisphere, influenced the relative weightings of head and torso in spatial judgments

Context compensation in the vestibuloocular reflex during active head rotations

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