What Are We Really Decoding? Unveiling Biases in EEG-Based Decoding of the Spatial Focus of Auditory Attention

As part of the NELI Group Journal Club at the University of Oldenburg, I presented the following paper:

Rotaru et al. (2024) — What are we really decoding? Unveiling biases in EEG-based decoding of the spatial focus of auditory attention

This paper raises a critical methodological question in the auditory attention decoding field: are EEG-based decoders truly tracking attentional focus, or are they picking up on confounding factors such as spatial biases and acoustic differences between stimuli? The authors systematically investigate potential sources of bias and highlight important caveats for interpreting decoding accuracy — a timely and necessary contribution given the rapid growth of auditory attention decoding research.