Decoding subjective preference from single-trial near-infrared spectroscopy signals

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has recently been identified as a safe, portable and relatively low-cost signal acquisition tool for non-invasive brain–computer interface (BCI) development. The ultimate goal of BCI research is for the user to be able to communicate functional intent directly through thoughts. In this paper we propose an NIRS-BCI paradigm based on directly decoding neural correlates of decision making, specifically subjective preference evaluation. Nine subjects were asked to mentally evaluate two possible drinks and decide which they preferred. Frequency domain near-infrared spectroscopy was used to image each subject's prefrontal cortex during the task. Using mean signal amplitudes as features and linear discriminant analysis, we were able to decode which drink was preferred on a single-trial basis with an average accuracy of 80%.