Extracting the fingerprints of sequences of random rhythmic auditory stimuli from electrophysiological data

Abstract

It has been classically conjectured that the brain assigns probabilistic models to sequences of stimuli. An important issue associated with this conjecture is the identification of the classes of models used by the brain to perform this task. We address this issue by using a new clustering procedure for sets of electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded from participants exposed to a sequence of auditory stimuli generated by a stochastic chain. This clustering procedure indicates that the brain uses the recurrent occurrences of a regular auditory stimulus in order to build a model.