Single-channel in-Ear-EEG predicts the focus of auditory attention to concurrent tone streams and mixed speech

Conventional, multi-channel scalp electroencephalography (EEG) allows the identification of the attended speaker in concurrent-listening (“cocktail party”) scenarios. This implies that EEG might provide valuable information to complement hearing aids with some form of EEG and to install a level of neuro-feedback. To investigate whether a listener’s attentional focus can be predicted from singlechannel hearing-aid-compatible EEG configurations, we recorded EEG from three electrodes inside the ear canal (“in-Ear-EEG”) and additionally from 64 electrodes on the scalp. In two different, concurrent listening tasks, participants (n = 7) were fitted with individualized in-Ear-EEG pieces and were either asked to attend to one of two dichotically-presented, concurrent tone streams or to one of two dioticallypresented, concurrent audiobooks. A forward encoding model was trained to predict the EEG response at single EEG channels. We found that all individual participants’ attentional focus could be predicted from single-channel EEG response recorded from short-distance configurations consisting only of a single in-Ear-EEG electrode and an adjacent scalp-EEG electrode. The responses to attended and ignored stimuli reveal differences consistent across subjects. In sum, our findings show that the EEG response from a single-channel, hearing-aid-compatible configuration provides valuable information to identify a listener’s focus of attention. not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/094490 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Dec. 15, 2016;