Decoding EEG-based cognitive load using fusion of temporal and functional connectivity features

Evaluating cognitive load using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is a crucial research area in the field of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). However, achieving high accuracy and generalization in feature extraction and classification for cognitive load assessment remains a challenge, primarily due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of EEG signals and the inter-individual variability in EEG data. In this study, we propose a novel deep learning architecture that integrates temporal information features and functional connectivity features to enhance EEG signal analysis. Functional connectivity features capture inter-channel information, while temporal features are extracted from continuous signal segments using a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network enhanced with an attention mechanism. The fusion strategy combines these two information streams to leverage their complementary strengths, resulting in improved classification performance. We evaluated our architecture on two publicly available datasets, and the results demonstrate its robustness in cognitive load recognition. Achieving performance comparable to the best existing methods on two public datasets. Ablation studies further substantiate the contributions of each module, demonstrating the importance of combining temporal and functional connectivity features for optimal results. These findings underscore the robustness and versatility of the proposed approach, paving the way for more effective EEG-based BCI applications.