A Training Data-Driven Canonical Correlation Analysis Algorithm for Designing Spatial Filters to Enhance Performance of SSVEP-Based BCIs

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is an effective spatial filtering algorithm widely used in steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). In existing CCA methods, training data are used for constructing templates of stimulus targets and the spatial filters are created between the template signals and a single-trial testing signal. The fact that spatial filters rely on testing data, however, results in low classification performance of CCA compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms such as task-related component analysis (TRCA). In this study, we proposed a novel CCA method in which spatial filters are estimated using training data only. This is achieved by using observed EEG training data and their SSVEP components as the two inputs of CCA and the objective function is optimized by averaging multiple training trials. In this case, we proved in theory that the two spatial filters estimated by the CCA are equivalent, and that the CCA and TRCA are also equivalent under certain hypotheses. A benchmark SSVEP data set from 35 subjects was used to compare the performance of the two algorithms according to different lengths of data, numbers of channels and numbers of training trials. In addition, the CCA was also compared with power spectral density analysis (PSDA). The experimental results suggest that the CCA is equivalent to TRCA if the signal-to-noise ratio of training data is high enough; otherwise, the CCA outperforms TRCA in terms of classification accuracy. The CCA is much faster than PSDA in detecting time of targets. The robustness of the training data-driven CCA to noise gives it greater potential in practical applications.