REFED: A Subject Real-time Dynamic Labeled EEG-fNIRS Synchronized Recorded Emotion Dataset
Xiaojun Ning, Jing Wang, Zhiyang Feng, Tianzuo Xin, Shuo Zhang, Shaoqi Zhang, Zheng Lian, Yi Ding, Youfang Lin, Ziyu Jia
Affective brain-computer interfaces (aBCIs) play a crucial role in personalized human–computer interaction and neurofeedback modulation. To develop practical and effective aBCI paradigms and to investigate the spatial-temporal dynamics of brain activity under emotional inducement, portable electroencephalography (EEG) signals have been widely adopted. To further enhance spatial-temporal perception, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has attracted increasing interest in the aBCI field and has been explored in combination with EEG. However, existing datasets typically provide only static fixation labels, overlooking the dynamic changes in subjects' emotions. Notably, some studies have attempted to collect continuously annotated emotional data, but they have recorded only peripheral physiological signals without directly observing brain activity, limiting insight into underlying neural states under different emotions. To address these challenges, we present REFED, the first EEG-fNIRS dataset with real-time dynamic emotional annotations. REFED simultaneously records brain signals from both EEG and fNIRS modalities while providing continuous, real-time annotations of valence and arousal. The results of the data analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of emotion inducement and the reliability of real-time annotation. This dataset offers the first possibility for studying the neural-vascular coupling mechanism under emotional evolution and for developing dynamic, robust affective BCIs.