# Decoding Neural Activity to Assess Individual Latent State in Ecologically Valid Contexts

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09050 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.09050/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [On Calibration of Modern Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.04599/) (2017)
- [EEGNet: A Compact Convolutional Network for EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08024/) (2016)
- [Uncovering the structure of clinical EEG signals with self-supervised learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.16104/) (2020)
- [Driver Drowsiness Estimation from EEG Signals Using Online Weighted Adaptation Regularization for Regression (OwARR)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.02901/) (2017)
- [Domain Generalization for Session-Independent Brain-Computer Interface](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03533/) (2020)
- [EEG-Based Driver Drowsiness Estimation Using Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00929/) (2018)
- [Analyzing P300 Distractors for Target Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04334/) (2018)
- [Benchmarking Domain Generalization on EEG-based Emotion Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.09016/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

There exist very few ways to isolate cognitive processes, historically defined via highly controlled laboratory studies, in more ecologically valid contexts. Specifically, it remains unclear as to what extent patterns of neural activity observed under such constraints actually manifest outside the laboratory in a manner that can be used to make an accurate inference about the latent state, associated cognitive process, or proximal behavior of the individual. Improving our understanding of when and how specific patterns of neural activity manifest in ecologically valid scenarios would provide validation for laboratory-based approaches that study similar neural phenomena in isolation and meaningful insight into the latent states that occur during complex tasks. We argue that domain generalization methods from the brain-computer interface community have the potential to address this challenge. We previously used such an approach to decode phasic neural responses associated with visual target discrimination. Here, we extend that work to more tonic phenomena such as internal latent states. We use data from two highly controlled laboratory paradigms to train two separate domain-generalized models. We apply the trained models to an ecologically valid paradigm in which participants performed multiple, concurrent driving-related tasks. Using the pretrained models, we derive estimates of the underlying latent state and associated patterns of neural activity. Importantly, as the patterns of neural activity change along the axis defined by the original training data, we find changes in behavior and task performance consistent with the observations from the original, laboratory paradigms. We argue that these results lend ecological validity to those experimental designs and provide a methodology for understanding the relationship between observed neural activity and behavior during complex tasks.