Separating Cognitive Processes with Principal Components Analysis of EEG Time-Frequency Distributions

Measurement of EEG event-related potential (ERP) data has been most commonly undertaken in the time-domain, which can be complicated to interpret when separable activity overlaps in time. When the overlapping activity has distinct frequency characteristics, however, time-frequency (TF) signal processing techniques can be useful. The current report utilized ERP data from a cognitive task producing typical feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300 ERP components which overlap in time. TF transforms were computed using the binomial reduced interference distribution (RID), and the resulting TF activity was then characterized using principal components analysis (PCA). Consistent with previous work, results indicate that the FRN was more related to theta activity (3-7 Hz) and P300 more to delta activity (below 3 Hz). At the same time, both time-domain measures were shown to be mixtures of TF theta and delta activity, highlighting the difficulties with overlapping activity. The TF theta and delta measures, on the other hand, were largely independent from each other, but also independently indexed the feedback stimulus parameters investigated. Results support the view that TF decomposition can greatly improve separation of overlapping EEG/ERP activity relevant to cognitive models of performance monitoring.