Reducing calibration efforts of SSVEP-BCIs by shallow fine-tuning-based transfer learning

The utilization of transfer learning (TL), particularly through pre-training and fine-tuning, in steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has substantially reduced the calibration efforts. However, commonly employed fine-tuning approaches, including end-to-end fine-tuning and last-layer fine-tuning, require data from target subjects that encompass all categories (stimuli), resulting in a time-consuming data collection process, especially in systems with numerous categories. To address this challenge, this study introduces a straightforward yet effective ShallOw Fine-Tuning (SOFT) method to substantially reduce the number of calibration categories needed for model fine-tuning, thereby further mitigating the calibration efforts for target subjects. Specifically, SOFT involves freezing the parameters of the deeper layers while updating those of the shallow layers during fine-tuning. Freezing the parameters of deeper layers preserves the model’s ability to recognize semantic and high-level features across all categories, as established during pre-training. Moreover, data from different categories exhibit similar individual-specific low-level features in SSVEP-BCIs. Consequently, updating the parameters of shallow layers-responsible for processing low-level features-with data solely from partial categories enables the fine-tuned model to efficiently capture the individual-related features shared by all categories. The effectiveness of SOFT is validated using two public datasets. Comparative analysis with commonly used end-to-end and last-layer fine-tuning methods reveals that SOFT achieves higher classification accuracy while requiring fewer calibration categories. The proposed SOFT method further decreases the calibration efforts for target subjects by reducing the calibration category requirements, thereby improving the feasibility of SSVEP-BCIs for real-world applications.