How Well Can We Decode Vowels from Auditory EEG -- A Rigorous Cross-Subject Benchmark with Honest Assessment

Fuente: arXiv
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Autor principal: Li, Xiaoyang
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Publicado: 2026
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author Li, Xiaoyang
author_facet Li, Xiaoyang
contents EEG based phoneme decoding is promising for brain computer interfaces, but many prior studies rely on within subject evaluation, small cohorts, or weak leakage control. We present a reproducible cross subject benchmark for five class vowel decoding (a, e, i, o, u) from auditory EEG using OpenNeuro ds006104 (16 subjects, 61 channels, 256 Hz). Under strict leave one subject out evaluation with training only normalization and explicit anti leakage checks, we compare 14 pipelines from classical machine learning, deep learning, and Riemannian methods. The best full feature model (XGBoost) reaches 24.5 percent accuracy (chance 20 percent), while differential entropy features with LightGBM reach 25.5 percent in feature specific analysis. After multiple comparison correction, strong pairwise model advantages are limited. Classical methods are competitive with deep models in this low signal regime. Additional analyses (ablation, pairwise vowels, within subject CV, ERP, temporal generalization, and electrode importance) indicate that vowel information is real but weak and mainly carried by early transient auditory responses. We release code and evaluation scripts for full reproducibility.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_00865
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How Well Can We Decode Vowels from Auditory EEG -- A Rigorous Cross-Subject Benchmark with Honest Assessment
Li, Xiaoyang
Signal Processing
Computation and Language
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Sound
Neurons and Cognition
EEG based phoneme decoding is promising for brain computer interfaces, but many prior studies rely on within subject evaluation, small cohorts, or weak leakage control. We present a reproducible cross subject benchmark for five class vowel decoding (a, e, i, o, u) from auditory EEG using OpenNeuro ds006104 (16 subjects, 61 channels, 256 Hz). Under strict leave one subject out evaluation with training only normalization and explicit anti leakage checks, we compare 14 pipelines from classical machine learning, deep learning, and Riemannian methods. The best full feature model (XGBoost) reaches 24.5 percent accuracy (chance 20 percent), while differential entropy features with LightGBM reach 25.5 percent in feature specific analysis. After multiple comparison correction, strong pairwise model advantages are limited. Classical methods are competitive with deep models in this low signal regime. Additional analyses (ablation, pairwise vowels, within subject CV, ERP, temporal generalization, and electrode importance) indicate that vowel information is real but weak and mainly carried by early transient auditory responses. We release code and evaluation scripts for full reproducibility.
title How Well Can We Decode Vowels from Auditory EEG -- A Rigorous Cross-Subject Benchmark with Honest Assessment
topic Signal Processing
Computation and Language
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Sound
Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00865