Beta Wave Activity Analysis Of EEG During Mental Painting Reflects Influence Of Artistic Expertise

In this study, Differences in beta wave activities of multichannel EEG signals related to artists and non-artists during mental painting were analyzed. The Davies-Bouldin Index was used to evaluate the quality of the feature space. It was found that SMR (13-15Hz), low beta (15-18Hz) and high beta (18-30Hz) wave activities were significantly higher for artists as compared to non-artists during the mental painting. The most discrimination between the EEG signals of the two groups was also observed in relative low beta power at Fp1. Finally, the EEG signals of the two groups were classified using the selected feature and a SVM classifier with an average detection accuracy of 81±18.53%. The increased beta wave activities for visual artists reflect their strengthened attention due to training in the visual arts. The obtained results may be used for designing a neurofeedback training protocol to improve artistic abilities of novice visual artists. In this approach, the increase in relative low beta power at Fp1 was proposed as the neurofeedback training protocol for enhancing mental painting performance.