Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183 – 196

www.elsevier.com/locate/cmpb

Context related artefact detection in prolonged EEG

recordings
Maarten van de Velde a,*, I. Robert Ghosh b, Pierre J.M. Cluitmans a
a
Eindho6en Uni6ersity of Technology, Medical Electrical Engineering Group, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindho6en, The Netherlands
b
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, UK

Received 30 September 1998; received in revised form 12 February 1999; accepted 15 February 1999

Abstract

The need for reliable detection of artefacts in raw and processed EEG is widely acknowledged. Although different
EEG analysis systems have been described, only few general applicable artefact recognition techniques have emerged.
This paper tackles the problem of artefact detection in seven 24 h EEG recordings in the intensive care unit. ICU
recordings have received less attention than, e.g. epilepsy monitoring, although recordings in this environment present
an interesting application area. The EEG data used here was recorded during the difficult circumstances of an explorative
ICU study. The data set includes a diverse set of EEG patterns, as well as EEG artefacts. The study investigates objective
artefact detection methods based on statistical differences between signal parameters, using time-varying autoregressive
modelling (AR) and Slope detection. In addition to matching the performance of artefact detection against two human
observers, the study focuses on the optimal settings for context incorporation by testing the algorithms for different
time windows and epoch lengths. Results indicate that a relatively short period (20 – 40 s) provides sufficient context
information for the methods used. The combined AR and Slope detection parameters yielded good performance,
detecting approximately 90% of the artefacts as indicated by the consensus score of the human observers. © 1999 Elsevier
Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: EEG; ICU; Artefact detection; Validation; Amplitude analysis; Autoregressive modelling

1. Introduction of artefacts is a time-consuming and tedious task,

The occurrence of artefacts in the EEG hinders
the reliable use of automatic analysis techniques.
Pre-processing by manual screening and marking
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-40-2473288; fax: + 31-
40-2466508.
especially in prolonged recordings, though the
viewing of events detected by automation and
subsequent confirmation of artefact is not so
onerous for human observers. A major problem
in computerised processing of the EEG is the
non-stationary behaviour of the non-artefactual
signal and the fact that some types of artefacts

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184 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196

can resemble EEG activity. In addition, a wave-
form of exactly similar morphology may be cor-
rectly categorised as artefactual in one record, and
non-artefactual in another. They must, therefore,
be assessed in clinical context.
From a practical point of view, the problem of
non-stationarity and artefact identification actu-
ally may lie in the basic differences between hu-
man screening and screening by a computer.
Visual evaluation is usually performed on rela-
tively long segments of 10 – 60 s where artefacts
are observed in relation to the ongoing signal. On
the other hand, a computerised screening process
should always be based on EEG features obtained
from a stationary signal, which requires the use of
short epochs of only 1 – 2 s [1]. Somewhat longer
stationary epochs may be found when using adap-
tive segmentation of EEGs, but in general the
segments are still rather short when compared to
human screening (e.g. [2 – 4]).
The signal’s behaviour may be modelled by
analysis (first derivative), which has been success-
ful for instance in the detection of muscle artefact
[12,13]. Temporal context is modelled for both
methods by reference to the EEG period immedi-
ately preceding the test-epochs, where detection of
significant changes is based on statistical princi-
ples for variability tracking (AR) and outlier de-
tection (Slope). Different lengths for the context
period are investigated.
2. Methods
2.1. Autoregressi6e modelling
Auto-regressive (AR) modelling of discrete time
series consists of computing the coefficients that
represent the correlation of a discrete time series
s(n) with the preceding samples at sampling times
(n−1) to (n−p),
p

analysing the behaviour of features during seg- s(n)= 80 + % 8ks(n− k)+ e(n) (1)
k=1
ment transitions, thus incorporating the temporal
context of the EEG. We can then apply con- where 80 represents the DC component of s(n),
straints (rules) to restrict the permitted sequence 81,…,8p are the AR model coefficients, and e(n)
of segments, and identify distinct segments ac- is the residual error. The order p determines the
cordingly [5,6]. A drawback of these methods is number of unknown variables in the model.
An optimal solution can be found for a signal
the amount of heuristics involved in feature selec-
period of length N by minimising the residual
tion and the difficulties in composing an optimal
errors, which can be performed with the ordinary
set of rules [7]. An alternative approach to arte-
least squares (OLS) method [14]. The N equations
fact detection is the comparison of parameters to
that are used in the calculation are first written in
thresholds that are derived from statistics of a
vector notation:
preceding EEG period. For instance, Flooh et al.
[8] took a short period as referential context, S = 8 0 + Z 8 + e (2)
using an amplitude threshold calculated as sixfold S and e are vectors of N elements,
the average amplitude in the preceding 10 s. A
relatively long context period was used in a study Á8 0Â
by Brunner et al. [9], where the median of spectral ÷Ã
power was calculated over 3 min for the detection 8 0 = Ã · Ã,
of muscle artefact in sleep recordings.
÷Ã
The present study will further explore the con-
cept of temporal context in relation to artefact
Ä8 0Å
detection, using two complementary detection Á 0 · · 0 Â
Á8 1 Â
methods. A time-varying autoregressive (AR) Ã s(1) · · 0 Ã Ã Ã
model will target EEG-like artefacts, where in ·
Z = Ã · · · · Ã, 8 = Ã Ã
particular the identification of low frequency arte- ·
à · · · 0 à à Ã
facts is expected [10,11]. Detection of artefacts in Ä8 p Å
the higher frequency range is performed by Slope Äs(N− 1) · · s(N−p)Å
 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
The OLS method consists of minimising the
quadratic cost function
J = e Te =
e
2
to through the following set of equations:
e = S −Z 8 − 8 0
N
and consequently,
J = [S − Z 8 −8 0] [S −Z 8 − 8 0]
T
and
dJ
= −Z T[S −Z 8 −8 0]= 0
d8
The minimum for J is found for
Z 8 =S −8 0
resulting in the ‘least squares estimate’ for the
model coefficients [14]:
8 = (Z TZ ) − 1Z T(S − 8 0)
2.1.1. Optimal model estimation and order
selection
An adequate fit of the original signal is char-
acterised by a residual error term that has the
statistical properties of an independent white-
noise process. This can be checked by testing for
normality [15] using the Shapiro – Wilk statistic
[16]. This test is more powerful than other alter-
natives, and provides a sensitive measure for
non-normality [17,18]. Minimum power of the
residual error process is guaranteed by the OLS
method, and the actual values can be calculated
from Eq. (3).
Higher model orders will generally result in
smaller errors, but apart from the expense of
increasing computing time, a problem of over-
fitting exists [19,20]. In order to find a compro-
mise, Akaike’s information criterion (AIC: [21])
includes the log-likelihood of the normalised er-
ror while penalising increasing orders p:
AIC(p)= ln
 s 2e
+
2p
R0 N cal significance is examined by comparing ‘test’
s 2e error variance
185
R0 autocorrelation, or power, of s(n)
N length in samples of EEG period
The best model order p minimises the AIC,
for
(3) 15 pB3
which is a practical test range [19]. Previous in-
vestigations in EEG reveal optimal model orders
between p= 2 and p= 15 (e.g. [22,23]). Rela-
tively low orders p= 5 or 6 have been reported
consistently in various types of EEG [24–26].
2.1.2. EEG 6ariability detection
Theoretically, the AR coefficients describe the
EEG signal in each epoch. However, the re-
quirements of independence and normality of
the error term will most likely not be met during
abnormal and artefact periods. The AR model
(4) will try to adapt to changes and any distur-
bance, which will be reflected in both the coeffi-
cients and the residuals. Therefore, using
coefficients or errors alone is not enough for
detection of changes in the EEG [26,27].
We calculate the multidimensional vector F i in
every epoch of 1 s, which is assumed to be sta-
tionary [1]. The vector F i consists of the AR
coefficients 81,…,8p and includes the mean merr
and standard deviation serr of the residual errors
normalised relative to 1 mV. All vector compo-
nents are weighted equally in the model. Initial
explorations in the current data set confirmed
that the model’s individual components were ap-
proximately of the same order of magnitude
(varying below 5 mV, normal EEG) (also see,
e.g. [28]).
Variability tracking is performed on two con-
secutive EEG periods, shifting forward in time,
designated ‘context’ window and ‘test’ window
(see Fig. 1). In both periods, the variance of the
Euclidean distances between F i and their average
(5)
is calculated. A high variance is expected when
artefacts are encountered, for which the statisti-
variance to ‘context’ variance. For two indepen-
dent normal processes, the ratio of variances l 22/
l 21 follows an F-distribution, having N2 − 1 and
186 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
N1 −1 degrees of freedom for test and context
period respectively. The one-sided 100(1− a) per-
centage upper-confidence limit is found from a
standard table for the F-distribution [29]:
l 22
5 fa, N 1 − 1, N 2 − 1 (6)
l 21
The length of the test window is fixed at N2 =
10 [s], context length is varied for N1 =10, 20, 40,
80, 160 [s], corresponding to f0.01, N 1 − 1, N 2 − 1
= 5.35, 4.81, 4.57, 4.40, and 4.31 respectively.
This approach incorporates all parameters of the
AR estimation and tests Eq. (6) at significance
level a = 0.01.
2.2. Detection of short transients
Another statistical approach to EEG validation
is based on the assumption that the occurrence of
artefacts is reflected in changing statistical prop-
erties of amplitude parameters. In the current
study, we used the Slope parameter to target
short transients. This parameter is simple to im-
plement, yet very sensitive to high-frequency arte-
fact (see, e.g. [30–32]).
A straightforward statistical implementation
has been used here. In each epoch, the maximum
Slope (1st derivative) is calculated, between all
pairs of successive samples, resulting in the Slope
histogram over a ‘context’ window of epochs.
The histogram is expected to follow a normal
distribution during ‘normal’ data conditions [33].
Now we can set a highamplitude threshold at
(m + 3s) based on the mean (m), and standard
deviation (s) for outlier detection in the ‘test’
window (see Fig. 2). The confidence interval B
analogous to the AR approach: the reference
histogram was obtained from the context win-
dow, for context lengths of N=10, 20, 40, 80
and 160 [s]. For increasing numbers of N, the
precision of the threshold estimate (m + 3s) in-
creases, which should lead to improved hypothe-
sis testing.
2.3. Data set
The data used here are EEG registrations as
measured in a feasibility study in the intensive
care unit (ICU) in Kuopio University Hospital,
Finland. The recordings were approved by the
Medical Ethics Committee; informed assent was
obtained from the patients’ relatives. Five pa-
tients (male, age range 19–78 years) were in-
cluded in this study; two were monitored twice,
resulting in seven 24 h recordings. This data is
publicly available from the fully annotated data
library (DL) that was acquired in an interna-
tional collaboration, the IMPROVE DL [35]. The
EEG data in the DL presents a wide range of
patterns, and may be considered reasonably rep-
resentative of EEG recordings in ICU.
The EEG investigations were restricted to two
channels, as only globally representative cerebral
changes were being assessed; these were C3-P3
and C4-P4 (10-20 system). As a minimal set,
these parasagittal derivations are also known as
showing the least number of artefacts in a clinical
setting [36]. Standard Ag–AgCl type electrodes
were used. Electrode impedance was kept low,
and electrodes were reapplied when checks or
sustained artefacts suggested deterioration. The
input amplitude range was 9 200 mV, at a sample
− , m +3s \ defines the range in which the
parameter values are considered ‘normal’. In a
normal distribution, this range encompasses
99.9% probability of the distribution function,
therefore promising high specificity (few false de-
tections).
The unit epoch length for processing was cho-
sen at 1 s, identical to the autoregressive method.
Apart from accepting this epoch length as sta-
tionary [1], 1 s is also optimal for the accuracy of
detection, e.g. as shown in muscle artefact [34].
The Slope detection process was performed
frequency of 100 Hz, using a 2nd order low-pass
filter at 25 Hz cut-off frequency. A comprehen-
sive review of procedures and technical details is
given by Thomsen et al. [37].
2.4. E6aluation
2.4.1. Visual artefact assessment
Two experienced human observers were in-
volved in the visual screening of all data, which
 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
Fig. 1. Variability tracking: an autoregressive model of order p is fitted every ith epoch, yielding vectors F i that consist of AR-coefficients 81,…,8p and the mean merr
and standard deviation serr of the residual errors (the arrows depict the (p + 2) dimensional vectors F i and their average C (N)). Next, the variance of the Euclidean
distances between F i and C (N) is calculated. This procedure is performed in both the context window and the test window. The statistic l 22/l 21 is used to detect
significant changes in signal variability.

187
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M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
Fig. 2. Detection of slope outliers: In every ith epoch the maximum slope is calculated, resulting in a distribution with mean mS and standard deviation ss for the slopes
in the context window. The threshold of (mS +3ss) is then used in the test window to detect ‘short’ transients.
 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
was performed on a high-resolution computer dis-
play, showing only one channel in pages of 10 s.
This means that both channels C3 and C4 were
scored, without bias of the other channel. The
observers were well trained in artefact assessment
of clinical EEGs and worked independently
through the data, browsing through the data page
by page. Artefact-pages were classified as ‘moder-
ate artefact’ or ‘severe artefact’, and scored ac-
cordingly by a button-push. The evaluation
included on average 7,500 pages per channel per
patient, amounting to a total of more than
100 000 pages.
Scoring was performed according to the follow-
ing guidelines:
“ No score was given to pages showing a distinct
EEG signal, allowing for minor artefacts (i.e.
very short duration or low amplitude, e.g. mi-
nor 50 Hz/muscle activity).
“ Moderate artefact was scored in signal pages
showing: artefacts of relatively small ampli-
tude, total artefact time less than 1 s, or show-
ing presence of only one or two short
‘electrode-pop’ artefacts.
“ Se6ere artefact was assigned to pages other
than above: large amplitude artefacts, 50 Hz
interference and muscle activity of larger am-
plitudes (twice the ‘background’ amplitude).
In general, artefact scoring is not a sharply
defined procedure; indeed, these guidelines were
designed to allow for some subjectivity while try-
ing to capture most of the artefacts. In view of the
amount of data, the exercise was kept relatively
simple, while obtaining accurate artefact
markings.
2.4.2. Performance measures
The above procedure and methods allow us to
evaluate the performance of both observers and
computer in percentages of time, in brief:
Sensiti6ity is defined as the percentage of true
artefacts (true according to the observer) that are
marked correctly by the detection algorithm, indi-
cating the detection power of the method. Positive
prediction is the accompanying measure of proba-
bility that indicates the percentage of automatic
markings that are considered by the observer(s) to
be true artefacts.
189
A comparable measure is specificity, to assess
the reliability of leaving unmarked those pages
that do not contain any artefacts—i.e. a low false
detection rate results in a high specificity.
Subjective differences in interpretation of
lengthy phenomena may be magnified in the per-
formance measures. However, this evaluation is
objective in view of the question ‘what average
length of EEG context is adequate for detection
of artefacts?’
3. Results
3.1. E6aluation by human obser6ers
3.1.1. Matching the obser6ers’ artefact scoring
The observers marked approximately 1,000
artefacts (80 min per channel) in each of the
patients, an average 7% of total recording time.
Observerc 1 was the most critical of the two, and
scored significantly more artefact pages than ob-
serverc2, especially in recordings 34, 35 and 36.
This is obvious also from the inter-observer com-
parison as depicted in Fig. 3: c 2 scored less than
60% of the artefacts of c 1 in those recordings.
The agreement score, or consensus, represents
the sensitivity towards the other observer’s scor-
ing. Mean consensus was 76%, which includes all
artefact markings. The differences in artefact as-
sessment were mostly caused by the subjective
interpretation of 50 Hz interference. Some lengthy
periods of this type of artefact were marked by
observerc 1 as ‘severe’ (recording 34, 36) or
‘moderate’ (35) and were not marked by ob-
serverc2 because of relatively distinct EEG pat-
terns. When correcting for these periods, the
agreement score reached well over 80% (correc-
tion not shown in graph). Lengthy periods of
serious distortion in patient 38, including 50 Hz
interference, were marked by both observers.
The general agreement of the observers—as
well as the subjective interpretation of signals and
guidelines—is further illustrated by comparing
the scores for ‘severe’ artefact periods. The result-
ing higher overlap of the observers’ markings is
also indicated in Fig. 3. This effect was largest in
190 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
the scores for patient 35. In this patient, only
2% of the recording was scored as artefact by
both observers, whereas an extra 2 h of 50 Hz
interference in channel C3 was marked only by
observer c1 (adding 4% artefact time).
The consensus about 6alid EEG periods was
very high: typically, 95 – 99% of the unmarked
periods by one observer were accorded by the
other. In part this is also explained by the low
occurrence of artefacts, relative to the length of
the recordings. The number of markings that
did not match was rather small compared to the
7,500 pages in an average recording.
3.1.2. Artefacts and patients
A previous exploration of the data set had
resulted in an initial classification of artefacts.
The annotations had been made on a 1 min
time scale. Artefact occurrence was found to
consist of: sustained artefacts (71%), brief elec-
trode artefacts (21%), 50 Hz interference (6%),
and scalp muscle potentials (2%). The absence
of eye movement artefacts and the relative
paucity of scalp EMG potentials reflected the
chosen electrode derivations and the medication
or pathologically obtained state of the patients.
Nursing and medical interventions and patient
coughing were responsible for 78% of the arte-
facts. Most artefacts resolved rapidly without at-
Fig. 3. Inter-observer comparison: the consensus or agreement-score for marking of artefacts in the different patients (recordings
32/34, and 33/36 are the same patient). Consensus was high for ‘severe’ artefacts.
tending to electrodes [38]. Although no direct
comparison could be performed because of dif-
ferent methodology, the observers of the current
study acknowledged those earlier findings. The
current study focussed on the aspects of time
resolution of artefact detection using a higher
resolution for scoring. Therefore, scores and
derived measures are necessarily different (also
see Refs [37,39]).
The patients had been admitted to the ICU
based on the diagnosis of multiple organ failure
(definitions in Ref [40]). Recordings 32 and 34
were of the same patient (age 69), showing a
generally attenuated EEG; the patient eventually
died 7 days after the second recording. Record-
ings 33 and 36 were of a cardiac patient (age
78), without gross abnormalities in the EEG. A
presumed drug effect resulted in a burst-suppres-
sion (BS) pattern in patient 35 (age 19), who
received a loading dose of thiopental before the
recording. His ICU diagnose was ‘status epilep-
ticus, suspected encephalitis’, and the EEG gen-
erally showed high-amplitude, irregular patterns.
Neither of the observers scored the BS pattern
as artefact, nor did the automatic methods.
Patient 37 (age 39) showed low amplitude
EEG (diagnosis: meningitis Escherichia coli,
hydrocephalus, septic shock). He died 10 days
 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
Fig. 4. Optimal order estimation for the AR model using the
Akaike information criterion (AIC).
after the recording. Patient 38 (age 29) did not
show any grossly abnormal EEG features.
3.2. Performance of automatic methods
3.2.1. Autoregressi6e modelling
Order selection and model validation. Before
starting the evaluation of the variability tracking
method, the autoregressive model was examined
for optimal order and normality of residual er-
rors. These analyses were performed in the first 3
min of every recording, testing both channels.
Fig. 4 shows the grand-averaged data for the
AIC, showing a minor, but obvious inclination
towards AR order 5 as optimal. Therefore, this
order was used in all subsequent calculations.
The normality test was performed using a C-
translation of Royston’s implementation of the
Shapiro–Wilk test [41]. Overall, 80% of the error
series was accepted as statistically normal (a =
0.05). The normality was lower in patients 35 and
36 where the recording started with artefact peri-
ods. This further validates the inclusion of the
error parameters in the AR variability tracking.
AR detection results. The detection of statisti-
cally different EEG pages was performed by test-
ing the F-statistic as described in the methods
section. The average variance of the AR-vectors
in the artefactual pages was significantly higher
than in the unmarked pages, but the method
proved to be rather insensitive to artefact detec-
tion in general. Two observations were made: (1)
the method was most successful for artefacts of
higher amplitude, and (2) the detected artefacts
191
were generally in the lower frequency range, and
were often spread over several pages. Therefore,
the performance measures in terms of time were
found to underestimate the true detection power,
since the variability tracking only detected the
start of multiple-page artefacts. For instance, the
variability in a prolonged 50 Hz signal reduces to
zero. This problem could be solved by an al-
gorithm that ‘halts’ the context window until the
artefact is over. However, this was found a rather
intricate addition to the current model. Moreover,
this would invalidate the investigation of different
‘context’ lengths: the period between artefacts of-
ten did not allow reinstating the context model.
Fig. 5 shows the performance for detection of
artefact onset of the AR method versus the con-
sensus of the observers. The consensus incorpo-
rated all artefacts that were marked by both
observers, regardless of being ‘moderate’ or
‘severe’. The average sensitivity reached over 50%
only for context lengths of 10 and 20 s. The
positive prediction for these contexts was signifi-
cantly different from the neighbouring series
(ANOVA, a= 0.01). The increasing overlap for
40, 80 and 160 s context was obvious also from
increasing, high non-significance.
AR detection of only the ‘severe’ artefacts was
characterised by approximately 20–40% higher
sensitivity values. However, the corresponding
predictive accuracy was below 10%.
3.2.2. Slope detection
Slope detection was very successful in the ICU
EEG data. The results are indicated in Fig. 6,
showing detection performance versus the consen-
sus of the observers.
The sensitivity showed acceptable high values in
all patients, except in patient 38. In this patient
the relatively long periods of (consensus) interfer-
ence artefact resulted in a very wide distribution
of Slope values, causing insensitive threshold
calculation.
Overall, Slope detection performance was not
different for artefact onset alone: foremost, the
method detected short duration, transient arte-
facts. Average sensitivity was highest when using
a 20 s context length (76%), rising to 84% when
excluding patient 38.
192 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
The variance of positive prediction increased
with longer context windows. At the same time
average prediction decreased: the performance did
not improve. However, no statistical significance
was found.
3.2.3. Combined AR and Slope detection
The results of the combined methods are given
in Table 1, for a context of 20 s. Selection of 20 s
context was based on the observations above: an
AR sensitivity of 51% (at an acceptable 0.3 true
artefact prediction rate), and highest Slope perfor-
mance. The detection process was generally char-
acterised by Slope detection of high frequency
artefacts and AR detection of ‘lower’ frequency
artefacts. We can see that the average sensitivity
has increased to 89%, which is 5% higher than the
average indicated in Fig. 6 using Slope detection
alone. In the individual patients, the AR method
contributed a 2–10% improvement to detection
power.
The specificity of detection was generally very
high: 93–99% of valid EEG pages was left un-
marked by both the Slope and the AR method.
4. Discussion
Signal monitoring in ICU frequently presents a
good mix of biologic, technologic, and extrinsic
Fig. 5. Artefact detection using time-varying autoregressive variability tracking. Ellipses indicate the (m+ s) probability-contours
(mean+standard deviation) for each series. (*) denotes a significant difference in positive prediction for 10 s, 20 s context lengths.
artefacts [42]. Validation of EEG data acquired
during such difficult conditions is imperative for
automatic analysis and incorporation into routine
practice [43].
The current study aimed at detection of all
artefacts in the EEG subset of the IMPROVE
data, focussing on context resolution. The meth-
ods were based on statistical rules, designed for
objective detection of outlier phenomena in the
EEG. Two observers were involved in scrutinising
the 24 h recordings at a 10 s time resolution.
Observer 1 scored a total percent artefact time of
7.7%, observer 2 scored 5.7% as artefact.
Subjective interpretation is a general problem in
EEG evaluation studies [44]. For instance, small
artefacts in delta frequency range amid a (normal)
background of larger amplitude can be underesti-
mated even by experienced observers [11]. There-
fore, the consensus score of observers was used to
test the performance of automatic algorithms. The
performance measures were defined to reflect the
percentages of time correct detection.
In general, the detection was performed highly
specific—partly affected by using performance
definitions in terms of time, in combination with a
low occurrence of artefacts. We acknowledged in
retrospect that 6alid EEG periods were sufficiently
left unmarked by the automatic methods, i.e. im-
plying high specificity.
 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196
Fig. 6. Performance of detection for the Slope amplitude method: detection versus context lengths. Ellipses indicate the (m+ s)
probability-contours (excluding the outlier values of patient 38). No change in performance was observed beyond 80 s context
length.
The results also show that the Slope parameter
detected most of the artefacts, and indicate that
long context lengths were not needed for the
investigated data set. The time-varying autore-
gressive variability tracking method was only rela-
tively successful. Nevertheless, when using a
combination of both methods, AR contributed up
to 10% sensitivity by detecting low frequency
artefacts. The overall performance reached 89%
sensitivity and 53% positive prediction. This latter
figure implies that approximately half of the auto-
matic markings do not indicate artefacts. How-
ever, positive prediction is somewhat adversely
influenced because of the consensus data from the
human observers, which may also have excluded
some possible true artefacts. In addition, it would
seem sensible to err towards high sensitivity (at a
cost of lesser positive prediction); this would al-
low observers to visually analyse events detected
by automation, and categorise them as artefact/
non-artefact. This would be in the knowledge that
very few artefacts were missed by automation. If
the aim eventually were to develop ‘event detec-
tion’ as opposed to ‘artefact detection’, the posi-
tive prediction would be greatly increased.
Based on the current findings, especially the
EEG-like deviations found by AR variance detec-
tion may be defined as ‘events’ rather than arte-
facts. Therefore, in clinical recordings ‘event
193
detection’ not only includes the artefacts, but also
may highlight the most interesting parts of the
recording. As a discriminating method, higher
AR-variability scores will more likely indicate
(low frequency) artefacts. Interestingly, AR based
analysis combined with variance testing was also
used in an early method by Vachon et al. (1978)
[45]. They used an F-ratio of only the error
variances, calculated within the residual array of
the AR model (1 s-epoch, p= 5). At significance
levels a= 0.05 and 0.10, they concluded that the
detected non-stationary waveforms also needed
additional pattern recognition. The current ap-
proach incorporated all parameters and residuals
of the AR estimation and tested formula Eq. (6)
at significance level a= 0.01, while incorporating
longer context periods.
Context related detection was implemented here
as a ‘history’ based detection, therefore still differ-
ent from human screening. Human screening of-
ten also involves ‘going back’ in the data, which
influences decision about the EEG being artefac-
tual or not. In the current implementation, the
automatic methods were designed for objective
on-line processing, testing for statistical signifi-
cance. As an illustration, Figs. 1 and 2 represent
true data from the current study. Both figures
indicate automatically detected EEG ‘events’ in
the test window that were not marked by the
194 M. 6an de Velde et al. / Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 60 (1999) 183–196

Table 1
Artefact detection using a context length of 20 s: slope detection and autoregressive variability tracking combined

Patients 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Overall

Sensitivity (%) 89 79 94 97 87 98 75 89
Pos. prediction (%) 49 61 57 50 58 50 49 53

observers, while clearly displaying deviating phe- N length in samples of EEG period
nomena in the EEG. P order of autoregressive (AR) model
Artefacts often occur in more channels simulta- S signal vector
neously, therefore a detected ‘event’ (or ‘candi- e residual error vector
date’ artefact) is usually checked visually in all S summation
channels displayed together. This was also ob- 81,…,8p AR coefficients
served in the current data set, but not incorpo- 8 AR vector (coefficients)
`
rated in the algorithms or the evaluation. Z matrix of p times N elements
D
Combining channels has been described by vari- J quadratic cost vector (of error power)
ous authors (e.g. [4,46,47]), implementing such s 2e error amplitude variance
spatial (cross-channel) processing mainly for the R0 autocorrelation, or power, of s(n)
identification of eye-artefacts using rule-based sys- F i vector of 81,…,8p, mean merr, stan-
tems. Another recently described system [48] used dard deviation serr of the residual
artificial neural networks to pre-process EEG fea- errors
tures, and discriminated between (eye-) artefacts, N1, N2 number of epochs in ‘context’, ‘test’
muscle artefacts and electrode artefacts in an ad- window respectively
ditional knowledge-based stage. The system cor- C (N 1), C (N 2) average of F i
rectly identified 90% of artefacts in the initial l 21,l 22 variance of F i (euclidian distance to
evaluation. Unfortunately, the system was not C (N 1), C (N 2))
evaluated in a large clinical data set, and temporal fa, N 1−1, N 2−1 significance of the ratio of variances
context was not evaluated systematically. l 21,l 22
The current study provides some starting points
for choosing the optimal length of the context Slope distribution
periods in automatic analysis. Optimal context − minus infinity
was concluded to be as short as 20 – 40 s. ms mean
ss standard deviation

Acknowledgements

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